The Russians are coming. That seems to the cry at the moment reverberating from Damascus to Washington over what appears to be the continuing build-up of Russian forces on the ground in Syria.

That Moscow has a presence in Syria is of course nothing new with the two nations having been historical allies since the Cold War.

This very point was made recently by Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria V. Zakharova.

In response to reports of Moscow’s increased presence in the country Zakharova simply replied: “We have been supplying Syria with arms and military equipment for a long time … and we can’t understand the anti-Russian hysteria about this.”

More recently of course, Russia had propped up the regime of President Bashar al-Assad with weapons, advisers, financial support, and political cover on the UN Security Council since the start of the Arab Spring uprisings in the Middle East.

As early as October last year when Syrian opposition forces overran a government listening post evidence emerged that it was staffed by the Russian military.

For some time no one it seems other than the Western intelligence community took much notice of this new support. Then suddenly a few weeks ago what appears to be substantial fresh proof surfaced that Moscow is considerably bolstering its military presence in the country.

So just what then does this new evidence amount to? What too does it signify in terms of Moscow’s strategy and potential political ambitions both in the region and beyond?

The best place to start in answering the first of these questions is by considering the latest satellite imagery to have emerged revealing Russian military deployment to the Bassel al-Assad air base in Latakia.

According to analysts from the independent US based intelligence monitoring group Stratfor and satellite imagery specialists AllSource Analysis, construction and deployment at the base is moving ahead rapidly.

Significant engineering works are clearly underway, with pictures showing a large amount of Russian military equipment having arrived at the airfield.

One of the most striking elements of the latest satellite imagery is the presence of materiel that suggests a large Russian mechanised infantry unit is on the ground.

In the pictures rows of armoured personnel carriers are evident, as well as a lines of T-90 main battle tanks. Analysts have flagged up that the number of vehicles suggests at least two mechanised infantry companies and one armoured company are present which when combined form a basic battalion-sized combat element.

All this heavy military hardware has been arriving not just via the air bridge the Russians have created at the Bassel al-Assad base, but also been brought in as cargo on large numbers of Russian ships monitored moving traveling between the Black Sea and the Syrian ports of Latakia and Tartus in Syria.

Off the runway at the Bassel al-Assad airbase pictures clearly show a field artillery battery in position and the presence of military helicopters including Mi-24 Hind attack helicopters and Mi-17 Hip transport helicopters.

To those unfamiliar with such vehicles and aircraft, suffice to say that they provide a powerful backup provision should any infantry deployment be made on the battlefield.

The fact that the helicopters in the imagery do not have the rotors installed on them suggests too that they may have only just been delivered. It would indicate that they were ferried there by giant Russian air force transport aircraft, the helicopters’ rotors having been removed to allow them to fit in the cargo hold.

But it is not only their own forces that the Russian have been reinforcing.

Deliveries of advanced weaponry to the Assad regime and an annual 200,000 tons of liquefied petroleum gas through Kerch, a port in the Crimean peninsula, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in March 2014 have also gone Syria’s way. Over the years Moscow has not only become Syria’s primary weapon supplier but Russian companies are said to have invested approximately $20 billion. Giving up on Assad would mean giving up on these investments, something hard to imagine.

So much then for the military hardware and financial support, but what does all this signify in term of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s strategic and political intent. Well to being with clearly Putin still sees Syria as Russia’s most important foothold in the region.

But Putin’s support for Assad also chimes with the Russian leader’s grand plans to restore Russia as a major power opposing the West. Much of all this activity of course is passed off by Putin as a blueprint for a “broad coalition” to fight the Islamic State (IS) group in Syria. The danger in all of this strategic manoeuvring from Putin’s perspective of course is that it could still see Russia being dragged into a real war.

If Moscow now has the means to implant itself in the region, the question remains as to how far it will go. Certainly Russia is now in a holding position. Either it is waiting before making a final decision on whether to deploy fighter aircraft to the Bassel al-Assad airbase, or it could be deploying initial forces to assess the situation on the ground before moving forward.

If there is any certainty among all this speculation it is that Moscow seems determined to protect its old Damascus ally.

“What Russia has done, is make it clear that it will not let Assad fall. He can’t win, but Russia won’t let him lose. That dooms Syria to what looks like endless war, as Assad fights to the last man,” was how international analyst Jeffrey Lewis of the James Martin Centre for Nonproliferation Studies, rather bleakly summed it all up recently.