Reuters reports that
Syria’s former President Bashar al-Assad is in Moscow with his family after Russia granted them asylum on humanitarian grounds, a Kremlin source told Russian news agencies on Sunday, and a deal has been done to ensure the safety of Russian military bases.
The two claims made in this short paragraph are staggeringly inaccurate and infinitely ironic. First, only a ruthless dictator who has killed a million of his own soldiers and about as many civilians and soldiers in Ukraine could ever offer asylum on “humanitarian” grounds to a dictator who, with the aid of Russia and Iran, killed a million of his own people and caused 8 million of his own population to flee the country, creating the largest refugee crisis since WWII. The notion of “honor among thieves” absolutely pales in comparison with “honor among dictators”.
Second, it is hard to imagine that Russia actually believes that the rebels who have taken over Syria will follow through on their promise to protect the Russian port in Tartus, Syria. It is hard to imagine that the rebel armies who were laid to waste indiscriminately by the Russian forces on those bases will grant these ruthless murderers forbearance as a practical consideration for building power in the state they now control. Keeping the Russian foothold in Syria will, after all, pose a risk to the new regime that he rebels form in the future.
Exhausted financially and militarily, Russia will, apparently, spin any story to pretend that its disastrous defeat in Syria is a graceful exit. No one will shed a tear if the Russians in the Tartus military base are laid to waste.
Syria’s former President Bashar al-Assad is in Moscow with his family after Russia granted them asylum on humanitarian grounds, a Kremlin source told Russian news agencies on Sunday, and a deal has been done to ensure the safety of Russian military bases.
Source: Syria’s Assad is in Moscow after deal on military bases: Russian state media | Reuters