Putin commented on Syria during his end-of-year news conference on Thursday [Photo by Contributor/Getty Images]
Russian President Vladimir Putin said that his country was not defeated in Syria in comments made at his annual end-of-year news conference on Thursday.
Putin, who intervened in Syria in favour of the Assad regime in 2015, after it suffered military setbacks against opposition forces, made the comments in response to a question from an NBC reporter.
During the response, he admitted that he hadn’t met former president Bashar al-Assad since the latter’s arrival in Moscow after he fled Syria on 8 December.
The New Arab takes a look at Putin’s attempts to save face following the downfall of the Syrian regime he supported.
Russia ‘achieved its goals’
Putin’s first point for why Russia had not been defeated in Syria was because it had achieved its goals; “to prevent a terrorist enclave from being created there.”
Putin said that since Russia’s intervention, the opposition had made internal changes, arguing that this could be seen in Europe’s and the US recent overtures to Syria’s new transitional government.
“Would they [Europe and the US] be doing this if they were terrorist organisations? This means that they have changed, doesn’t it?”
On the sidelines of Qatar’s Doha Forum on 7 December, the day before the Assad regime fell, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov labelled Syria’s opposition as terrorists when discussing its support for the Assad regime.
“We’re trying to do everything not to allow terrorists to prevail, even if they say they are no longer terrorists,” Lavrov said.
Russia has extensively bombed opposition areas throughout the war, killing thousands of Syrian civilians while carrying out strikes on civilian facilities such as hospitals and school
Russia ‘not responsible’ for collapse of Assad regime
A second point made by Putin was that Russia was not to blame for the collapse for the Assad regime. He instead put the blame on Iran.
Explaining what happened during the beginning of the rebel offensive in Aleppo, Putin claimed that the city was defended by 30,000 soldiers, and that when 350 opposition fighters entered the city, the Syrian army and Iranian militias withdrew.
This happened everywhere in Syria, Putin added.
“In the past, our Iranian friends requested assistance to move their units into Syria; now they have asked us to help withdraw them.
“We facilitated the relocation of 4,000 Iranian fighters to Tehran from the Khmeimim air base. Some pro-Iranian units withdrew to Lebanon, others to Iraq, without engaging in combat.”
As the Assad regime’s military crumbled in the face of the rebel advance, Russia carried out airstrikes for a number of days, targeting civilian areas in the cities of Idlib and Aleppo.
Russia ‘still has a role in Syria’
Even though the regime he had helped to prop up had collapsed, Putin insisted that Russia still had a role to play in Syria.
“We maintain dialogue with all groups controlling the situation there and with all regional countries,” he said, adding that “an overwhelming majority of them have expressed interest in retaining our military bases in Syria.”
Russia has two main bases in Syria, the Khmeimim air base outside the city of Latakia on the Syrian coast, and a naval instillation in the port of Tartous.
He also claimed that Russia has offered humanitarian assistance to Syria through those bases; “we have extended this proposal to our partners within Syria and neighbouring nations.”
As to a question on whether Russia has been weakened as a result, Putin quoted American author Mark Twain, saying “‘the reports of my death are greatly exaggerated'”.