In 2015, Russia waged its largest military campaign outside its borders since the Cold War, launching a sweeping air war to rescue Bashar al-Assad’s crumbling regime in Syria. Back then, Syrian rebels were closing in on the regime’s strongholds, even as Assad leaned heavily on Iran and Hezbollah for support in the years prior. Moscow’s intervention turned the tide, culminating in the recapture of the largest Syrian city of Aleppo and a fragile stability that has largely held since.

Until now.

A Syrian opposition fighter takes a picture of a comrade stepping on a portrait of Syrian President Bashar Assad in Aleppo.Credit: AP

This week, Syrian rebels mounted a stunning assault on regime positions in Aleppo and Idlib, unravelling nearly five years of hard-won stalemates in the north. Those frontlines, painstakingly secured by Russian firepower, now look perilously fluid. The assault raises urgent questions about the Assad regime’s durability and its allies’ ability to rescue it this time.

The challenges facing Assad and his backers in Russia and Iran are unprecedented. Moscow is bogged down in Ukraine, where a reinvigorated US-backed campaign has given Kyiv the green light to strike inside........

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