Asylum in Russia: Russian government distances itself from Assad

The Russian government has distanced itself from the deposed Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told the state news agency Tass that the rapid upheaval in Syria a good three weeks ago was also due to ex-President Assad’s inability to solve the social problems in the country. “We can already say that one of the reasons for the deterioration of the situation was the inability of the then government to meet the basic needs of the population in the protracted civil war.”

Until the coup on December 8th, Russia had been the protective power of the tyrant Assad alongside Iran. But the Kremlin, like Assad, was surprised by the rapid advance of the Islamist rebels and flew him into exile in Moscow when the capital Damascus was captured. Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin then made it clear that he did not view the removal of the Syrian president from power as a defeat for Russia’s military, which has been stationed there since 2015.

Lavrov said that after the successes in the fight against international terrorism, in which the Russian Air Force was also involved, the expectations of Syrians that their lives would improve had not been fulfilled. The USA also bears a large part of the blame for this, because it occupied a region rich in raw materials in northeastern Syria and also exerted considerable pressure on the Syrian government through sanctions.