CIS

Home page

CIS

Kremlin declines to comment on reports of Assad’s presence in Russia

01 December 2025 14:46 (UTC +04:00)

The Kremlin cannot share any information regarding the presence of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Russia, said Dmitry Peskov, the press secretary of the Russian president, APA’s Moscow bureau reports.

“No, we cannot share any information on this matter,” he said in response to a question about whether the Kremlin could provide any information regarding Assad’s stay in Russia over the past year or whether the former Syrian leader had met with Russian President Vladimir Putin during this period.

It should be noted that at the end of November 2024, armed opposition groups launched a large-scale offensive against the positions of the Syrian army. On December 8, they entered Damascus, Assad resigned from the presidency and fled the country. Ahmad al-Shaaraa became the de facto leader of Syria.

Russian sources reported that Assad and his family were in Moscow and had received asylum from Russia. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, during a meeting with journalists from Arab countries, stated that Assad and his family are living in Russia exclusively for humanitarian reasons, as the former president had been threatened with physical violence in his homeland.