Russian President Vladimir Putin ignored Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad for two days in Moscow as the latter’s regime was on the brink of collapse. This was reported by the German publication Bild with reference to the former head of the Syrian media Kamel Sakr.
On November 27, when the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group launched a large-scale offensive on Aleppo, Assad arrived in Moscow asking for urgent military assistance. However, according to Sakr, Putin made the Syrian dictator wait for an audience at Moscow’s Four Seasons Hotel for two whole days. On the day of the meeting, the time for negotiations was postponed three times, and the conversation itself lasted only an hour.
Sakr claims that Assad tried to convince Putin to provide air support to Iranian forces that could intervene in Syria. However, Putin left this request unanswered; moreover, he refused to make official statements about the meeting itself in order to minimize his involvement in the Syrian conflict.
Three days later, on November 30, Assad returned to Damascus, and strategically important Aleppo fell to the rebels. In the following days, the regime front finally collapsed: by December 8, the rebels had established control over Damascus.
Attempts to obtain support from Iran were also unsuccessful. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi visited Syria on December 1, but Iranian forces had withdrawn from the country months earlier.
According to Kamel Sakr, on December 5, Putin finally stopped communicating with Assad, after which the Syrian dictator realized that his regime was doomed.
Earlier, Kursor wrote that a former official during the Assad regime told new details about the dictator.