Bashar Assad, who ruled Syria with an iron fist for almost a quarter of a century, fled the country after opposition forces stormed the Syrian capital on Sunday, Russia’s Foreign Ministry has said.
Hours later, Russia’ TASS state news service said Assad and members of his family were in Moscow and had been granted asylum on “humanitarian grounds.”
After talks with rebels who took over Damascus on Sunday, facing scant resistance from government forces, Assad “decided to resign from the presidency and left the country, instructing a peaceful transfer of power,” the ministry said in a post on Telegram.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, writing on X, said Assad’s fall is a reminder that Russia and its allies can be defeated.
“The events in Syria have made the world realize once again, or at least they should, that even the most cruel regime may fall and that Russia and its allies can be defeated,” he wrote.
Russia has requested a meeting of the U.N. Security Council to discuss the events in Syria, TASS reported.
Moscow is asking “all parties involved to renounce the use of violence and to resolve all issues of governance by political means,” the Foreign Ministry said.
Syrian Prime Minister Mohammed Ghazi Jalali said the government was ready to “extend its hand” to the opposition and to turn its functions over to a transitional government, AP reported.
Reuters quoted rebel leader Abu Mohammed al-Golani as saying on Sunday that Syrian state institutions will be supervised by Jalali until they are handed over.
Assad had been in power for almost 25 years while his family had ruled the country for more than half a century. His Iran- and Russia-allied regime brutally curtailed human rights, deploying chemical weapons against civilians within the civil war that has raged in the country since 2011.
The fast-moving rebel insurgency put two of Russia’s strategic military assets — an airbase in Latakia province in northwest Syria and a naval facility at Tartus on the Mediterranean coast near Lebanon — under serious threat, Reuters reported on Saturday. Satellite imagery showed ships had been leaving the Tartus naval base for several days.
