MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin will hold talks with Syria’s leader Bashar Assad in Moscow on Wednesday, the Kremlin said.
“Topical issues of further development of Russian-Syrian cooperation in the political, trade, economic and humanitarian spheres, as well as prospects for a comprehensive settlement of the situation in and around Syria will be discussed,” the Kremlin said in a statement on Tuesday.
Assad’s office said he had arrived in Moscow for an official visit during which he would meet with Putin.
In a statement, it said that the Syrian president had been greeted on arrival by Putin’s special representative Mikhail Bogdanov and the Russian ambassador to Damascus Alexander Yefimov.
Assad was accompanied by a “large ministerial delegation,” said the Syrian presidency statement.
Damascus is a staunch ally of Moscow which intervened in the Syrian conflict in 2015 by launching air strikes to support the government’s struggling forces.
The Syrian civil war has killed around half a million people and displaced millions more since it started in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests.
Putin to hold talks with Syria’s Assad on Wednesday: Kremlin
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Putin to hold talks with Syria’s Assad on Wednesday: Kremlin
- Assad's office said he had arrived in Moscow for an official visit during which he would meet with Putin
- Assad was accompanied by a "large ministerial delegation", said the Syrian presidency statement
Syrian leader to meet Putin, Russia seeks deal on military bases
- Russia’s continued sheltering of Assad and his wife since their ouster remains a thorny issue
MOSCOW: Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa will meet Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Wednesday, as the Kremlin seeks to secure the future of its military bases in the country.
Putin and Sharaa struck a conciliatory tone at their previous meeting in October, their first since Sharaa’s rebel forces toppled Moscow-ally Bashar Assad in 2024.
But Russia’s continued sheltering of Assad and his wife since their ouster remains a thorny issue. Sharaa has repeatedly pushed Russia for their extradition.
Sharaa, meanwhile, has embraced US President Donald Trump, who on Tuesday praised the Syrian leader as “highly respected” and said things were “working out very well.”
Putin, whose influence in the Middle East has waned since Assad’s ouster, is seeking to maintain Russia’s military footprint in the region.
Russia withdrew its forces from the Qamishli airport in Kurdish-held northeast Syria earlier this week, leaving it with only the Hmeimim air base and Tartus naval base on Syria’s Mediterranean coast — its only military outposts outside the former Soviet Union.
“A discussion is planned on the status of bilateral relations and prospects for developing them in various fields, as well as the current situation in the Middle East,” the Kremlin said of the upcoming meeting in a statement on Tuesday.
Russia was a key ally of Assad during the bloody 14-year Syrian civil war, launching air strikes on rebel-held areas of Syria controlled by Sharaa’s Islamist forces.
The toppling of Assad dealt a major blow to Russia’s influence in the region and laid bare the limits of Moscow’s military reach amid the Ukraine war.
The United States, which cheered Assad’s demise, has fostered ever-warmer ties with Sharaa — even as Damascus launched a recent offensive against Kurdish forces long backed by the West.
Despite Trump’s public praise, both the United States and Europe have expressed concern that the offensive in Syria’s northeast could precipitate the return of Islamic State forces held in Kurdish-held jails.
