Embattled Syrian president flies to Moscow to meet with Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) greets his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad upon his arrival for a meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow. (Alexey Druzhinin/AFP/Getty Images)

Embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad flew to Moscow in a surprise visit on Tuesday evening, meeting one-on-one with Russian President Vladimir V. Putin at the Kremlin to discuss “the Syria situation and plans for the future,” the Kremlin announced Wednesday.
The extraordinary trip is Assad’s first public trip abroad since political protests descended into a bloody civil war in 2011, and comes after three weeks of Russian airstrikes have allowed Assad’s battered army to go on the offensive.

“Naturally [they discussed] issues of the fight against terrorist and extremist groups, issues of the continuation of the Russian operation supporting the offensive of the Syrian Armed Forces,” said Dmitri Peskov, Putin’s personal spokesman.

In a partial transcript of the meeting released by the Kremlin, Putin thanked Assad for visiting Moscow at Russia’s request, praised the Syrian people for fighting terrorism for several years “practically on their own,” and said that “serious results have been achieved in this battle.”

According to the read-out, Putin said that at least 4,000 fighters from the former Soviet Union are now fighting in Syria, and warned that they could not be allowed to foment instability in Russia.


He also said reiterated the eventual need for a political settlement to end the conflict. The West has demanded that Assad step down as part of any political transition, a condition Putin did not address in his remarks.

In response, Assad thanked the Russian leader for his support, and affirmed his support for a political settlement.

“The whole people wants to take part in deciding the fate of the state, not just the ruling group,” Assad said.

The meeting comes after Russian warplanes have carried out dozens of strikes daily against targets in Syria since bombing began on Sep. 30.

Russia says it is focused on fighting the Islamic State in Syria, but many of the strikes have been directed against other Islamist and more moderate forces opposed to Assad. The West says that Russia’s main goal is to prop up Assad and allow his forces to go on the offensive, not fight the Islamic State.

Russian and U.S. officials announced Tuesday that they had signed a “deconfliction” agreement to regulate aircraft and drone traffic over Syria’s increasingly crowded skies. On Tuesday, the Russian Ministry of Defense released video of a Russian jet tailing what appeared to be an American Reaper drone over Syria, and wrote that the only aircraft legally in Syrian airspace are Russian.

Reuters on Tuesday said that three Russians had been killed in an artillery strike in Syria, citing an intelligence source. The Ministry of Defense denied that any Russian servicemen had been killed in Syria. Critics have said that Russia may send unofficial forces, or “volunteers,” like in the Ukrainian conflict.