Kremlin confirms Bashar al-Assad has been granted asylum in Russia

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has confirmed that deposed Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad is now in Moscow, following unconfirmed reports of his arrival in the Russian capital on Sunday evening, state-affiliated news agency Interfax reported on Monday.

The decision to grant longtime Kremlin ally Assad political asylum had been taken by Vladimir Putin personally, Peskov added, though he declined to specify the fugitive former dictator’s exact location.

Assad arrived in Moscow on Sunday evening, after the Russian Foreign Ministry announced that he had voluntarily made the decision to resign and leave Syria, leaving officials in Damascus orders to undertake the peaceful transfer of power to the rebel groups now in control of the Syrian capital.

In their respective flagship Sunday evening TV shows on Russian state television, two of Russia’s best known pro-Kremlin propagandists, Vladimir Solovyov and Dmitry Kiselyov, were keen to stress that Moscow had fulfilled its obligations to Syria, amid accusations by US president-elect Donald Trump that Russia had abandoned its erstwhile ally.

Solovyov said that the Assad regime had fallen as the Syrian people were not prepared to “fight for their country”, according to independent media outlet Agentstvo, while Kiselyov said that while Moscow had not used ground troops to forestall the rebel advance on Damascus, it had always been committed to peace in the country, though he stressed that that the war in Ukraine was more of a priority for Russia than the current conflict in Syria.

Solovyov also praised the Russian military, which he said had previously “ensured victory” for Assad, and urged viewers to remain calm about the latest turn of events in Syria, adding that Moscow’s decision to grant asylum to the Assad family was an example of how Russia always fulfilled its obligations, unlike the US.

Ruslan Sulemaynov, an expert on the region, told Novaya Europe on Sunday that Moscow had lost an ally it had provided with weaponry and spent enormous sums of money on, all ultimately for nothing, adding that the fall of the regime was a “huge blow” for Putin.