He found refuge a week ago in Russia. Since then, there has been no news about his condition and that of his family. Moscow maintained the same secrecy in the case of other leaders to whom it granted asylum, Efe reports.
Although it was the Kremlin that confirmed Al Assad’s presence in Russian territory on December 8, presidential spokesman Dmitri Peskov has avoided the issue throughout the week in his press conferences.
One more word could jeopardize the future of its military bases in the Arab country, which is why senior Russian officials have also refrained from openly criticizing the major beneficiaries of the fall of the regime: Türkiye, Israel and the USA.
Waiting for Putin
Syrian and Iranian diplomats have confirmed that the ousted dictator’s family is in Russia, so there is no doubt about his whereabouts. But they did not provide more details either.
The Asads’ eldest son, Hafez, completed his doctorate at a university in the Russian capital, where the family would have bought, according to local media, several luxurious apartments in what is known as Moscow City, which is home to some of the tallest skyscrapers in Europe.
It seems that everyone is waiting for the Russian president, Vladimir Putinexpress himself in this regard, it was not in vain that he was the one who opted to avoid the overthrow of the regime by deploying troops in the Arab country in 2015.
Putin has participated in several official events this week, but never alluded to this matterwhich shows that the geopolitical setback for the Kremlin has been notable.
The staging of the victory in Syria with the historic concert held in May 2016 in the ruins of Palmyra, including an intervention by the head of the Kremlin via videoconference, is far away.
However, the wait will not be long. At the annual press conference on December 19 he will have to address the matter.
In the most recent case of the Ukrainian Viktor Yanukovychwhom Moscow rescued in February 2014, the Kremlin considered him directly responsible for his fate for turning a deaf ear to the advice to firmly repress opposition protests.
“Armed” opposition
Russian propaganda clearly demonstrated the change of trend in relation to Al Assad. In a few days the media went from calling the rebels of the Levant Liberation Organization (Hayat Tahrir al Sham, HTS, in Arabic) “terrorists” to calling them purely and simply “armed opposition”with which Moscow has already come into contact, according to what Foreign Affairs reported on Thursday.
All in order not to expose the Russian army, incapable of fighting on two fronts at the same time and mired in its current offensive in Donbas.
Assad has become a awkward character for Russia, since, as happened in the case of the deposed leaders of Iraq, Libya and Ukraine, the Kremlin does not want the impression that its authoritarian regime also has feet of clay.
In case there was any doubt, the deputy head of the Security Council, Dmitri Medvedev, made everything clear after his trip to China. “The internal situation depended on the administration, on the Assad Government. Unfortunately, the Syrian Army proved incapable, which is probably confirmation of the miscalculations committed during the state administration,” said the former Russian president. In addition, he raised serious doubts that future authorities will be able to guarantee coexistence between the different ethnic groups in the country. “In the old model applied by the Assads, father and son, consensus was achieved for some time. I am not talking now about at what price and with what consequences,” he said, according to the TASS agency.
Russia’s Syrians turn their backs
Be that as it may, the large Syrian community in Russia has wiped the slate clean. The embassy in Moscow lowered the national flag and raised the opposition flag on Monday. Groups of Syrians gathered in its surroundings this week to show their support for the new authorities in Damascus.
“The shameful and humiliating escape under the cover of night and without any sense of national responsibility of the head of the system confirms the need for change and awakens hope for a better future,” said Bashar Jaafari, Syrian ambassador to Russia and former representative to the UN. He assured the RT channel in Arabic that the fall of the regime in less than two weeks corroborates its “unpopularity and lack of support both in society and among the ranks of the Armed Forces.”
