Russia arranged for Syrian president Bashar Assad to leave Syria via a Russian airbase as rebels advanced on Damascus, Kremlin sources told Bloomberg in a report published on Wednesday.
The Kremlin feared for its longtime ally and convinced him that he would lose the lightning offensive led by the rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). The Kremlin offered him and his family safe passage if he left immediately, three unidentified sources familiar with the matter told Bloomberg.
Russian intelligence coordinated the escape, two sources told Bloomberg, and smuggled Assad out of a Russian airbase on the coast of Syria.
According to reporting from the Telegraph, Assad fled Damascus on his private jet without telling any of his advisors in case he was betrayed.
Assad’s jet flew with its transponder off to Russia’s Khmeimim air base on the Syrian coast. Afterward, Assad flew to Moscow, reportedly on a Russian military plane.
Russia in limbo
Despite personally approving the plans, Russian President Vladimir Putin reportedly still does not have any intentions of meeting Assad, according to Kremlin spokesperson Dimitry Peskov.
“There is no such meeting in the official schedule of the president,” Peskov told Russian media. “We have nothing to say about Assad’s whereabouts. Such decisions cannot be made without the head of state. It’s his decision. In this case, I have nothing to say.”
The Kremlin has not yet made any official comments about the collapse of Assad’s government, which has reportedly enranged and humiliated Putin. One source close to the Kremlin with information on the situation told Bloomberg that the Kremlin Chief is ordering to know why Russian intelligence didn’t see HTS’s threat to Assad’s regime sooner. His fall comes after years of heavy Russian financial and military support in the Syrian Civil War and nearly half a century of Assad family rule in Damascus.
The Jerusalem Post previously covered Russian media reports that the Kremlin granted Assad and his family political asylum on humanitarian conditions. The Russian Foreign Ministry told NBC News that Assad’s security within Russia “shows that Russia acts as required in such an extraordinary situation.”
Russian defense experts told Bloomberg that Russia’s reasoning for helping Assad flee was based on fears for its military bases in the region, the country’s only bases outside of former Soviet territory.
“This was damage control,” Ruslan Pukhov, head of the Moscow-based Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, told Bloomberg. Puhkov said it was “very logical” for Russia to urge Assad to give up in order to avoid a death similar to the mob killing of Libyan leader Moammar Qaddafi’s death in 2011.
Business Insider reported on Monday that Russian warships pulled out of the Kremlin’s only warm-water naval base, located in Tartus, after Assad fled.
The Russian military has yet to fully withdraw its forces from Syria. Peskov said on Monday that “everything is being done now that is necessary and everything that is possible in order to get in touch with those who can deal with security. And, of course, our military is also taking all necessary precautions.”
