He was whisked away with out a final message to his individuals, the plane’s transponder intentionally switched off to keep away from detection because it departed from an airbase in Syria.
The operation was carried out with such secrecy that even the dictator’s brother reportedly was not knowledgeable.
A decade earlier, it was Russian army energy that saved Bashar al-Assad’s rule by intervening on his facet throughout what seemed to be a shedding civil battle he violently tried to suppress. Now, as insurgent troops closed in on Damascus, Moscow supplied Assad with a private escape route.
In accordance with Bloomberg, Assad required some persuading from Russia to depart the nation, with Russian intelligence brokers orchestrating his escape to Moscow.
Assad’s journey choices have been at all times going to be restricted. As a pariah on the worldwide stage, his two main allies, Russia and Iran, have been the plain locations for refuge.
By selecting Moscow, observers recommend, Assad opted for a well-recognized place that aligned along with his lavish habits, whereas additionally deciding on a refuge with relative geopolitical stability.
“Bashar and his family are avowedly secular, even though they identify with the Alawite sect, so Russia always had more appeal than Iran in that sense,” stated David Lesch, a Syria professional at Trinity College in Texas who has met with Assad on a number of events.
Russia, whose chief, Vladimir Putin, is beneath an arrest warrant from the worldwide felony court docket, can also be much less prone to face stress or incentives at hand Assad over to these searching for to prosecute him.
“In Assad’s mind, Russia and Vladimir Putin can better protect his family from extradition or any other attempts by the international community to bring him to justice,” Lesch stated.
In accordance with Lesch, Russia is probably going to supply higher medical take care of Assad’s spouse, Asma, who was identified with leukaemia in Might. The British-born and raised Asma has been accused of utilizing her British schooling and western fashion to attempt to masks the brutality of her husband’s crackdown on dissent.
Russia’s ties with the Assad household return to the Nineteen Seventies when Assad’s father, Hafez al-Assad, hardened Syria’s place within the Soviet sphere.
In 2015, the connection between the 2 international locations obtained a contemporary increase after Putin’s intervention in Syria’s civil battle.
Within the years that adopted, Assad’s kids, together with different offspring of the Syrian elite, spent their holidays at summer time camps in Russian-annexed Crimea. Assad’s eldest son, Hafez, was despatched to check at Russia’s prestigious MGIMO College.
In the meantime, shut cousins and different family members slowly purchased up tens of hundreds of thousands of dollars-worth of properties in Moscow’s prestigious skyscraper district.
However regardless of Syria’s rising dependence on Moscow, the non-public relationship between Assad and Putin had at all times remained chilly.
Whereas Putin seems to have cast real friendships with some world leaders, most notably Silvio Berlusconi, whom he has hosted on wine excursions in Crimea, he has stored Assad at arm’s size.
By all accounts, the 2 leaders remained cautious of one another all through the years, with Moscow typically pissed off by what it perceived as Assad’s refusal to make even the smallest concessions towards reforming his nation or partaking with opposition teams.
When Assad fell, Russian media and state officers have been fast to placed on a courageous face, emphasising the narrative that Assad was guilty for his defeat.
Nonetheless, the Kremlin careworn that it was Putin’s private choice to evacuate Assad.
One former Russian diplomat stated that the video of the mob killing of the Libyan chief Muammar Gaddafi in that nation’s civil battle in 2011 left a grave impression on Russian officers and Putin himself.
“Even if Putin disliked Assad, he was never going to let him get devoured by the rebels,” the previous diplomat stated.
Dealing with a place of irrelevance within the Russian capital, Assad is predicted to steer a sheltered however snug life, so long as Putin stays in cost.
Moscow has turn out to be a haven for a motley crew of fugitives, starting from the previous Spartak footballer Quincy Promes to the whistleblower Edward Snowden and the previous Wirecard executive-turned-FSB agent Jan Marsalek.
However Assad’s destiny most intently mirrors that of Ukraine’s former president, Viktor Yanukovych, who has lived in a multimillion greenback residence in an elite Moscow suburb since his ousting in the course of the 2014 Maidan Revolution.
Very like the movies of Ukrainians touring Yanukovych’s opulent palace, adorned with artwork and different extravagant possessions, footage emerged final week displaying Syrian rebels wandering by means of Assad’s mansions, stocked with dozens of luxurious sports activities automobiles and designer baggage.
Assad and his household are unlikely to reside a public and indulgent way of life in Moscow. As an alternative, beneath the tight surveillance of Russian safety officers, they may in all probability be hidden away in a secluded property, shielded from public view.
To maintain his keep in Russia, Assad will possible be capable to faucet into a few of his reported $2bn believed to be hidden around the globe in offshore accounts and shell companies.
Moscow, for its half, will keep silent on its new visitor, steering away from reminding the world that it backed after which hosted a frontrunner who managed to commit the last word political sin: being each brutally authoritarian and unsuccessful.
Russian state media haven’t but launched any footage of Assad contained in the nation, a transparent signal Moscow is keen to maintain him away from the headlines, because it builds ties with the brand new males in command of Syria.
“I believe Bashar will maintain a very low profile, perhaps for the rest of his life. I do not see him at all making any sort of political comeback in Syria or anywhere else,” stated Lesch.
