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Al Jazeera
Al Jazeera
World
Simon Speakman Cordall

‘A blow to Putin’s prestige’: What al-Assad’s fall means for Russia

People walk past a poster in Damascus depicting Syria's Bashar al-Assad shaking hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin, March 7, 2022 [Yamam Al Shaar/Reuters]

After overseeing 13 years of the devastation that has come to define Syria’s civil war, the country’s former president, Bashar al-Assad, has fled Damascus for Moscow.

“Following his talks with a number of participants in the armed conflict in the Syrian Arab Republic, Bashar al-Assad decided to step down as the Syrian President and leave the country, instructing the government to transfer power peacefully,” the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Sunday.

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