Russian President Vladimir Putin has, so far, held off a Syrian government assault on Idlib and prevented an escalation by Israel and Syria, and by extension Iran. But keeping the peace in Syria will ultimately require deeper US-Russian coordination to manage the US troop withdrawal and prevent another round of costly bloodshed.

“When Moscow decided to launch a military operation in Syria in 2015, several goals were established. More than three years later, virtually all of them have been achieved,” writes Fyodor Lukyanov. “Radical Islamists have been crushed. President Bashar al-Assad has retained and strengthened his power. Russia’s regional clout has grown dramatically alongside its military and political impact on the global stage.”

Putin’s latest effort is to seize the opportunity of the withdrawal of American troops in Syria to prevent a Turkish-Syrian conflict and re-establish Syrian government control over those areas held until now by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) with the support of soon-departing US forces.

A Turkish ministerial delegation was in Moscow on Dec. 29 to work through the details, which will be challenging, given Turkey’s preoccupation with destroying the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), and the bad blood between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Assad. But the initial signs are good for those who consider Syrian state control of its territory as progress toward the end of the war.