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Vladimir Putin has denied that Moscow suffered a defeat in Syria, claiming that despite the implosion of Bashar al-Assad’s regime the Kremlin had achieved its aims in the country.
During a marathon annual press conference, the Russian president played down Moscow’s role in Syria, dismissing the importance of the military support it had provided for years to sustain Assad’s regime.
“I assure you this is not the case,” Putin said when asked whether Assad fleeing to Moscow earlier this month represented a setback. “We came to Syria 10 years ago to prevent a terrorist enclave from being established there . . . Overall, we achieved our goals.”
Russia scrambled to evacuate hundreds of troops and embassy staff from Damascus after Syrian rebel forces swept through the country in a matter of days. The future of its two major military bases in Syria is now uncertain.
Russia began a large-scale, costly intervention in Syria’s civil war in 2015, deploying thousands of troops and extensive air support to turn the course of the conflict in Assad’s favour.
But on Thursday, Putin claimed that Russia had “never fought” in Syria and had no troops on the ground there, despite manning two large and strategically important military bases at Hmeimim and Tartus.
As 350 armed rebels advanced on Aleppo, “the ground component was made up of Syrian forces and — as we all know, no secrets here — some so-called pro-Iranian military formations”, Putin said.
These troops simply abandoned their positions, he said, adding that Russia had also evacuated 4,000 pro-Iranian fighters to Tehran via its Hmeimim base. He did not mention the Russian air strikes against rebel positions that failed to halt their advance.
Russia is now negotiating with the rebel forces about the fate of its two military bases. Recent satellite images of Hmeimim have revealed movements of equipment there consistent with a retrenchment of Russian forces.
“We maintain contact with all groupings in Syria and all countries in the region. They all say that it would be better if we kept our bases there,” Putin said, but added that more conversations were needed to reach a mutually beneficial arrangement between Russia and the new rulers of Syria.
Losing the Hmeimim and Tartus bases would both dent Moscow’s image as a global powerbroker and present a serious strategic problem. The two sites are important logistics hubs for Russia’s other activities in the Mediterranean and its operations across Africa.
Putin said he had not yet met with Assad in Moscow but that he intended to do so.
He also said he was ready to meet US president-elect Donald Trump. “I haven’t spoken with him for more than four years. I am ready to do so at any point,” Putin said.
He denied that such a conversation would happen at a time when Russia was weakened by its decision to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, saying that in his view, Russia had become “much stronger over the past two to three years”.
“Rumours of my death are greatly exaggerated,” Putin quipped, to applause from the audience, citing a quote attributed to the author Mark Twain.
