Russian President Vladimir Putin personally approved Bashar Assad\u2019s asylum in Moscow, the Kremlin confirmed on Monday. The revelation follows reports that the former Syrian president and his family had arrived in Russia after the fall of Damascus to armed opposition forces. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a press briefing that there was no meeting scheduled to take place between Putin and Assad. \u201cThere is nothing to say regarding Assad\u2019s whereabouts,\u201d he added. When asked how Assad had been granted political asylum, Peskov said: \u201cSuch decisions cannot be made without the head of state; it is his decision.\u201d Mikhail Ulyanov, a senior Russian diplomat, confirmed earlier Monday that Assad and his family were in Moscow, saying this reflected Russia\u2019s commitment to its allies in challenging times. \u201cRussia does not betray its friends in difficult situations\u2026 unlike the US,\u201d Ulyanov stated. On Sunday, Russian media reported that Assad and his family had been granted asylum in Russia \u201con humanitarian grounds.\u201d According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, Assad agreed to step down following negotiations with armed opposition groups and instructed officials to ensure a \u201cpeaceful transfer of power.\u201d Hayat Tahrir-al-Sham (HTS) fighters, along with other anti-government factions, seized control of Damascus on Saturday following a swift advance in several regions of Syria.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Russian President Vladimir Putin personally approved Bashar Assad\u2019s asylum in Moscow, the Kremlin confirmed on Monday. The revelation follows reports that the former Syrian president…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21554\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}