Russia transported Bashar al-Assad, who was ousted as Syria’s president by a lightning rebel offensive, very securely to Russia, the country’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, tells NBC News in an interview aired on Tuesday.
The Kremlin said on Monday that President Vladimir Putin had made the decision to grant asylum in Russia to Assad. His fall is a big blow to Iran and Russia, which had intervened in Syria’s 13-year civil war to try to shore up his rule despite Western demands that he leave power.
“He is secured, and it shows that Russia acts as required in such an extraordinary situation,” Ryabkov tells NBC, according to a transcript on NBC’s website. He adds that he will not elaborate “on what happened and how it was resolved.”
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