Election data offers clues about Russian troop strength in Syria
By Andrew Osborn MOSCOW (Reuters) - Data showing how many Russian citizens in Syria took part in a weekend election for a new Russian parliament suggests the Kremlin may have around 4,000 military personnel based there backing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The Russian Defence Ministry has declined to divulge the size of its contingent in Syria, which is largely deployed at the Hmeymim air base in Latakia Province, but also based at a naval facility, in Damascus and in other locations in government-controlled territory helping Assad fight rebels. But figures from Russia's Central Election Commission published on its site after parliamentary elections on Sunday, which were won by the ruling United Russia party, offer a clue. They show that 4,378 Russian citizens cast their votes using mobile ballot boxes outside Damascus, the Syrian capital, where just 193 Russians voted. The data did not break down whether the voters were civilians or military personnel, but many Russian civilians who lived in Syria before its civil war have fled. In the last Russian parliamentary election, in 2011, the RIA Novosti news agency reported that only 35 Russian military personnel, then based at the Tartous naval facility, had voted. The Conflict Intelligence Team (CIT), a group of Russia-based investigative bloggers who specialise in analysing the Russian military, said the election commission data "offered a rare glimpse of the actual size of Russian force in Syria. "(The figure of 4,378) should reflect Russian numbers in Syria pretty closely, as turnouts at Russian military base polling stations tend to be 100 percent," a CIT note said. Russia launched air strikes in Syria on Sept. 30 last year, a move that altered the course of the conflict in Assad's favour. President Vladimir Putin ordered a partial withdrawal in March, though experts said that what followed resembled a reconfiguration of forces rather than a meaningful drawdown. Russian state TV broadcast footage of military personnel voting at the Hmeymim air base on Sept. 18. The RBK news portal cited Deputy Defence Minister Nikolai Pankov as saying at the time that all military personnel had taken part in the vote. Russian diplomats say that around 700 Russian citizens living in Syria used to take part in Russian parliamentary elections in peace time. Many of those voters, some of whom used to work in Syria's energy sector, have since left. Central Election Commission data showed a total of 5,360 Russian citizens in Syria were registered to vote this year, and that 62.7 percent of the 4,417 valid Russian voting slips had plumped for Putin's United Russia. (Editing by Mark Heinrich)
