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The collapse of the Bashar regime Assad in Syria, who has prolonged his agony since 2015 due to the military support given to him by the Russian government, is a significant blow to his reputation for the Kremlin. Because, engaged in a war that insists on calling special military operation in Ukraine, did not lift a finger to avoid the defeat of a strategic ally his. And by putting pragmatism before decorum, he is now trying to reach an agreement with those who defenestrated his protégé in a desperate attempt to maintain the military airfield and naval base that the Russian army installed in the Syrian province of Latakia, on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea.
This explains the sudden and surprising change of language on Russian public television, the Kremlin’s main propaganda instrument, which at the beginning of the offensive by Al Assad’s enemies continued to report that “Russian aviation successfully bombs the positions of groups terrorists who challenge the legitimate government…” and, since the city of Aleppo fell, after keeping silent about the casualties of Russian soldiers and the weapons that were captured, he began to modify his tone according to a new script.
The terrorists suddenly they turned armed opposition and moderate rebelswhile the generals of the Syrian army betrayed to its people, the Russian military had no obligation to fight in place of those inept cowards and the overthrown ruler decided to voluntarily give up power.
Within his personal failure, Al Assad had better luck than his disgraced colleague Viktor Yanukovych, former president of Ukraine who fled the country in 2014 and President Vladimir Putin also granted him political asylum for humanitarian reasonsbut after being called traitor of the ukrainian people on Russian television disappeared from public life.
Al Assad’s family, perhaps anticipating their future, is not going to go hungry: years ago they acquired 19 luxury apartments in one of the skyscrapers in the Moscow business center and did not leave Damascus empty-handed.
But for the Kremlin, Al Assad is now history and is negotiating with the new authorities in Syria.
Just as he began to do for a long time with the Taliban government in Afghanistan, trying to convince the Russians that they are not terrorists as their spokespersons used to say.
