"Russia is counting on Syrian president Bashar al-Assad keeping power to see through potential arms contracts worth up to £4 billion and help Moscow achieve a record defence export year, according to the Cast defence and security think-tank.
Having lost billions of pounds worth of arms contracts with Libya after leader Col Muammar al-Gaddafi was toppled last year, Moscow is looking to Damascus to maintain its political and economic influence in the Arab world.
“[If Assad goes] Russia will lose everything,” Cast director Ruslan Pukhov said.
“Syria is one of Russia’s top five clients. Russia already concluded with Syria contracts for £2.6bn and has £1.8bn more potential contracts on the way,” he said."
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