Russia

Last year, the total number of COVID-19 cases in all of Syria increased by 354 percent compared with 2020, while only a fraction of the population has been fully or partially vaccinated, according to the World Health Organisation. Meanwhile, Syria’s vaccination rate remains one of the lowest in the region.

Amid an acute economic crisis, the prices of commodities – including cereals, key food items, oil products, and COVID-19-related items – have soared last year compared with 2020, according to the World Food Programme’s Market Price Watch Bulletin for Syria. Despite the fact that the government has increased public sector salaries, the purchasing power of Syrians is nonetheless unable to keep pace with the rising cost of living.

Syria has recently signed a memorandum of understanding on joining China’s Belt and Road Initiative, a long-term, transcontinental infrastructure and investment project that aims to economically integrate countries falling along the ancient Silk Road trade route. Although the agreement is not legally binding, Syria would benefit immensely from its prospective inclusion, as the projects brought about by the initiative would contribute to the country’s post-war reconstruction.

Last month, the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) lost its main gateway to the outside world and a crucial financial lifeline after the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) suddenly closed two border crossings that link Northeast Syria to the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI). Consequently, all trade, including that of oil, has been suspended, as well as cross-border movements for all actors, including NGOs.

After over twenty years of negotiations, the Iranian government has announced that work on a multi-million dollar railway connection from the Iranian town of Shalamcheh to Iraq’s Basra is set to begin within two months. The link is part of a more significant railway project to connect Iran's Imam Khomeini Port with Syria’s Lattakia Port, the country’s main commercial port.

In late December 2021, Russia carried out a ten-day airstrike campaign on Idlib and parts of Rural Aleppo and Hama, killing civilians and widely damaging civilian infrastructure and key sources of livelihoods, including a UNICEF-supported water station, a foodstuff factory, and several poultry and cow farms. The attacks, which are in violation of the 2020 ceasefire agreement between Turkey and Russia, have only contributed to further exacerbating already deteriorating living conditions in the region and may be a sign of increasing tensions between the two countries.