(Bloomberg) -- Syria’s Bashar al-Assad has landed in Moscow after Islamist-led forces entered the capital and ended more than half-a-century of his family’s rule.
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The mystery surrounding his whereabouts was finally put to rest late Sunday. According to a Kremlin official familiar with the situation, he has arrived in the Russian capital and TASS state media reported he and his family were granted asylum.
As rebels seized Damascus and looted Assad’s private residence and the presidential palace, various news reports suggested he would seek refuge with key allies: either Russia — given that Vladimir Putin came to his rescue back in 2015 — or Iran. The United Arab Emirates, which played a role in his final days and desperate bid to cling to power, was also thrown in the mix.
At one point, mid-chaos, it was suggested his plane crashed during his escape and he was dead. Rumors that he was headed to Hungary, where Prime Minister Viktor Orban was acting as an intermediary with the US, were also dismissed.
Instead it seems that his eldest son, Hafez, and second son, Kareem, are with their mother, Asma, in Moscow. Assad could have been there as recently as Nov. 29 as the tide turned against him with the lightning assault on his regime over two weeks.
Russia, this time, declined to intervene heavily to prop him up at home. That is a telling sign and suggests Putin may be willing to house him but not to get massively involved in Syria. His attention has been taken by Ukraine, where he launched an invasion in 2022.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov did not respond to a request for comment.
(Adds tout of Story on Putin in first screen. A previous version corrected location of the video caption after AP said the right location was the Assad’s private residence not the presidential palace. Both places were raided.)
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