12/13/2024

Assad’s Fall Humiliated Putin and Could Dent His Global Ambitions

Assad’s fall nine years after Russia saved his regime is a stunning blow

Russia is scrambling to save face after its humiliating loss of its client, dictator Bashar al-Assad, and the Kremlin has conceded preserving its crucial Syrian military bases will take time and delicate negotiations with groups it was calling “terrorists” just days ago.

In 2015, Russian President Putin made saving the Assad regime his personal project, intervening with a massive show of airpower to prevent his defeat by insurgents. Assad’s fall nine years later was a stunning blow to the main goal in Putin’s long rule — forging Russia into a great world power competing globally with the United States.

"The entire system of Russian presence in the Middle East, which was built over the past 10 years and in which very significant resources were invested, has in an instant turned into something from a political era that has faded into oblivion," said Mikhail Rostovsky, writing in the pro-Kremlin newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets. "This is a hurtful, unfortunate, even painful fact that cannot be denied or understated."

Please select this link to read the complete article from The Washington Post.