Kommersant: Syria plans to turn the Russian Khmeimim airbase into a training base for its military

The administration of interim Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa plans to turn the Russian Khmeimim airbase into a training and humanitarian center, Kommersant reports, citing a Syrian source familiar with the situation.

According to the publication’s interlocutor, the facility “will come under joint management” of Russia and Syria, but will serve “only non-military purposes.” The Syrian authorities would like to use the capabilities of the base to train their forces, which consist mainly of members of radical formations, and which, as the source noted, lack combined arms training.

Kommersant, citing the Lebanese newspaper Al-Modon, writes that Damascus would like to attract Russian instructors to the training programs.

• Currently, Russia controls the Khmeimim airbase in Latakia province and the naval logistics center in Tartus in Syria. The overthrow of the regime of Bashar al-Assad, who was allied with Moscow, and his flight to Russia called into question the Kremlin’s cooperation with the new Syrian authorities. In October 2025, Ahmed al-Sharaa came to a meeting with the Russian president in Moscow and stated that the new Syrian authorities would respect all agreements previously signed with Russia.
• Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in an interview with Al-Arabiya TV channel, said that the current Syrian authorities see the Russian presence as “a stabilizer—a role that balances the influence of other players.” “As for our military facilities. We are discussing them now. The Syrians, I repeat once again, are interested in our presence remaining. These are no longer purely military functions, as they were before December 2025, but quite suitable facilities for repurposing into humanitarian hubs,” Lavrov noted.