Bashar al-Assad should be sent to wartorn Mariupol in Ukraine to fix it up in thanks for all his help from Putin, Russian politician says
Deposed dictator Bashar al-Assad should move to Mariupol and help rebuild Ukraine in exchange for Russian citizenship, a Russian lawmaker has suggested.
Assad is said to have been granted asylum in Moscow with his family after surrendering to invading rebels in Syria and fleeing the country last weekend.
He has not appeared in public since the fall of Damascus and it remains unclear where he is or what he plans to do as politicians debate his status in Russia.
Dmitry Kuznetsov MP suggested that Assad could join the Russians in occupied Mariupol as authorities begin rebuilding the city.
“I believe that Bashar Assad and his family could become benefactors of one of the war-ravaged areas in the Donbass, and move to one of the newly built houses in Mariupol,” Kuznetsov told the Moscow-based gazeta.ru this week.
‘I’m in favour [Assad] proving that he was of service to the Russian people, and after that – because of his contribution to the recovery of the Donbass – we could think about the issue of citizenship,” he added.
Assad is said to have been given safe passage to Moscow when rebels entered Damascus last weekend. Russian intelligence reportedly had to persuade him to leave in a last-minute drama, advising him that he would lose if he defeated their forces.
An explosion rocks an apartment building after a Russian army tank fires in Mariupol, Ukraine, Friday, March 11, 2022
An aerial photo shows the destruction at the Yarmouk camp for Palestinian refugees and its cemetery, in southern Damascus, Syria on December 14
Bashar Al-Assad attends the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, November 11, 2023
Kuznetsov proposed putting Assad in office amid growing debate over his future in Russia.
“He could also support Emir Kusturica in filming a movie in Donbass [sic] based on [19th century Russian writer, Fyodor] Dostoyevsky,” he suggested.
According to the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin has made personal commitments to grant Assad asylum.
But a final decision on his future in Russia must be made.
Alexey Zhuravlev, also a member of parliament, shortly afterwards urged Telegram that Assad should be granted citizenship, despite the mixed feelings he harbors in Russia.
“Russia treats all its allies humanely, even if they are the defeated ones, and this, by the way, is a fundamental difference from the US, which very quickly dethrones former friends,” he wrote.
‘If [ousted, pro-Russian Ukrainian former president] Viktor Yanukovych could obtain Russian citizenship, so why wouldn’t he give it to Assad too?’
According to a 2019 FT investigation, Assad’s family reportedly owns at least 18 apartments in Moscow, worth around $40 million.
Russia had long supported the Assad regime against various rebel groups during the Syrian civil war until its collapse.
Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with Bashar al-Assad at the Kremlin in Moscow, July 24, 2024
Syrians gathered in a central square in Damascus on December 13 to celebrate their liberation from the Assad regime in Damascus Square
A Russian soldier in a military convoy stands by the road due to an engine failure as they travel through the Hmeimim air base on the Syrian coast in Latakia, Syria, on December 14, amid reports that Russia is now withdrawing its assets from the country
Assad was apparently granted asylum on “humanitarian grounds,” the culmination of a light offensive by rebel groups launched on November 28.
Prior to the fall of the capital, it was reported that his family had fled to Moscow, where his eldest son, Hafez, was already a PhD student working on a dissertation.
Asma, Assad’s British-born wife, could theoretically return to Britain, even if believed her father, Dr. Fawaz al-Akhras, is also already in Russia.
Assad is unlikely to be sent to Ukraine given Kuznetsov’s unusual comments.
However, Moscow has made efforts to rebuild and Russify Mariupol, which it captured after a brutal siege months after the war.
The UN estimates that as many as 90 percent of the city’s buildings were damaged or destroyed, and 350,000 people were forced to leave.
Ukrainian authorities say more than 20,000 people have been killed in the city, out of a pre-war population of about 430,000.
After the siege, about 100,000 remained. Russia claims that more than 300,000 people now live there.
A woman reacts during her son’s funeral at a cemetery in Vinnytsia. Nazary Gryntsevych, a Ukrainian soldier of the Azov Brigade, was one of the youngest soldiers who occupied the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol during the Russian siege
A residential building destroyed during the conflict between Ukraine and Russia in the southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine, April 14, 2022
A Russian soldier patrols the Mariupol Drama Theater in April 2022
Property developers were among the beneficiaries of Russia’s plan to rebuild the city in its own image, receiving “lucrative” contracts because locals live in “half-built” houses and “dangerous, leaky apartments,” the newspaper said. FT.
Rights groups documented Russian war crimes during the brutal campaign against Mariupol in early 2022, including the bombing of a theater housing civilians, killing hundreds of people, and an attack on a maternity ward.
The Red Cross said the situation in Mariupol in 2022 was so dire that people were “attacking each other for food” on a day when not a single person was brought to safety.
Sasha Volkov, the head of the Red Cross delegation in the city, told the BBC that there is “a kind of black market in vegetables” but that no other food is available.