Moscow is turning away from Assad. Only with Russia’s help was the Syrian president able to keep the power and subjugate his people for years after the uprising in 2011. Once the military intervention began, the Russian air force successfully destroyed entire cities, thereby defeating the rebel forces. Now, following Assad’s downfall, the Kremlin has begun to criticize its Syrian ally, calling him incompetent.
According to Bild, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that the rapid change of power in Syria about three weeks ago was also due to the inability of Bashar al-Assad. He had not managed to solve the social problems in the country.
“One of the reasons for the crisis was the inability of the then government to meet the basic needs of the population during the long civil war,” Lavrov explained.
Russia, along with Iran, acted as the Syrian regime’s protecting power until Assad’s fall on December 8.
Lavrov explained that, despite the successes achieved (also thanks to the Russian Air Force), the Syrians had not experienced any improvement in their living conditions. The USA bore considerable responsibility for this: it had occupied a region rich in natural resources in the northeast of the country and exerted additional pressure on the Syrian government through sanctions.
The surprisingly rapid advance of Islamist rebels surprised both Assad and the Kremlin. When the rebels took Damascus, Assad was evacuated to Moscow and taken into exile.
Kremlin ruler Vladimir Putin, however, claimed that Assad’s removal from power should not be seen as a setback for Russia’s military involvement in Syria since 2015.
Earlier, we reported how Russian propaganda justified Assad’s downfall, blaming others for his collapse.
Once the Assad regime in Syria collapsed in a matter of days, Moscow and Russian propaganda found themselves unable to deny the events, leading them to seek explanations for the geopolitical catastrophe.
Russian propaganda argued that Assad’s fall is not the fault or defeat of Moscow, which for many years supported Assad with weapons and troops. Putin’s chief TV propaganda host, Vladimir Solovyov, blamed the Syrians and other Assad’s allies.
Solovyov claimed that the Syrians did not want freedom and that the Iranians, Iraqis, and Lebanese had not helped Assad.
Russian propaganda has begun to justify the fall of Bashar Assad’s regime. According to their version, Moscow “fulfilled all its obligations to Syria.”
Therefore, the Kremlin has devised a strategy to present the victory of the Syrian rebels as Russia’s success. One of Russia’s propaganda mouthpieces, Vladimir Solovyov, initially declared that “everything is going according to plan” (a common claim on all topics).
On his evening program, Vladimir Solovyov recalled a quote from Putin nine years ago, in which he stated that he “foresaw what is happening in Syria” in 2024. He also noted Assad’s flight as another achievement: “Russia has fulfilled its obligations to Syria by ensuring Assad’s earlier victory” and now by giving him and his family asylum in Moscow.
Meanwhile, The Times reports that Assad’s wife’s British passport has expired, preventing her from returning to her birthplace of Great Britain.Recently, there have been suggestions that Asma Assad is seeking to separate from her husband and return to Britain to continue her leukemia treatment.
According to the publication, the validity of her British passport expired in 2020, which is an obstacle for Assad’s return to London. It is unclear whether the British authorities prevented her from renewing the document or whether she herself allowed the expiration date to pass.
British Foreign Secretary David Lidington had previously told MPs that Asma Assad was “not welcome” in the UK.
Asma Assad was born and raised in Acton, west London, and became Syria’s first lady in 2000 after marrying 59-year-old Bashar Assad shortly after he became president.
Rebel forces led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) launched a lightning offensive earlier this month, finally toppling the Assad regime in Syria.
According to media reports, Asma Assad fled to Moscow a few weeks before the fall of Damascus, and her husband later joined her.The couple’s three children, 23-year-old Hafiz, 21-year-old Zayn, and 19-year-old Karim, are also in the Russian capital, where the Assad family owns a number of elite properties.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken previously confirmed that the American side supports direct contacts with the Syrian rebel group “Hayat Tahrir al-Sham” (HTS), which overthrew Bashar al-Assad’s regime in the country. The European Union reportedly wants to establish direct contact with the new rulers in Syria.
The situation with Assad and his family once again demonstrates how Russia uses allies for its own ends, discards them, or provides them with refuge, keeping them as loyal servants for future use if needed. A striking example is the former fugitive president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, whom the Kremlin sometimes pulls out of the closet to broadcast its narratives.
