What happened
TASS reported on 14 October 2026 that Russia's deputy foreign minister, Georgy Borisenko, had told RTVI that concrete intergovernmental agreements on the facilities were being prepared and would settle their future status: "I hope this will happen by the end of this year." He called the August text an interim memorandum and described the sites as "training and logistics centers, that is, they will partially be shared", used partly to train Syrian military personnel. No duration, rent, jurisdiction or permitted activity was stated. No Russian auxiliary or sanctioned cargo ship was documented at Tartus in the window, and the 7 September group remained the latest call.
The first dated Russian expectation for the formal instrument, about three weeks before the memorandum's three-month transition is due to close in early November. It is a timetable, not a term, so the published-terms observable is not met. The wording differs from Damascus's: on 22 September the president described the facilities as training centres doing no logistical work for operations against other countries; Moscow calls them training and logistics centres. The two can be compatible if "logistics" means the facilities' own sustainment, and neither side has defined it.
Confidence: High
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