Bashar al-Assad and his family are set to see a “precipitous fall in living circumstances” after fleeing Syria into exile in Moscow, says a former spy chief.
Sir Alex Younger, who headed MI6 from 2014 to 2020, believes the deposed Syrian tyrant will discover “the deep shallowness and superficiality” of his relationship with Russia which kept him in power for years.
He expects the new life for Assad, 59, and his wife Asma, 49 and a former King’s College London student, will be very far from the palatial luxury that they enjoyed in Damascus as he inflicted his brutal regime on his people.
Vladimir Putin came to Assad’s rescue, alongside Iran, after he faced a widespread revolt in 2011 as part of the so-called, pro-democracy “Arab Spring”.
The Russian president intervened decisively in the Syrian civil war in 2015, propping up the Assad regime, after then US president Barack Obama shied away from taking tough action against it for crossing a “red line” with the use of chemical weapons on rebel-held areas of the country.
“Putin gets this completely undeserved reputation as a master strategist, he is not,” Sir Alex told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
“He is a master tactician. He’s an opportunist.
“He exploited an opportunity which he saw in Syria...and he exploited it brilliantly well.
“But that is what it was, a tactical, opportunistic move.”
But Putin, with his focus on his war in Ukraine, only gave Assad limited military support in recent weeks as rebels swept across Syria, forcing him to flee the country on Sunday.
Ex-spy chief Sir Alex added: “I’m wholly unsurprised when a far more existential priority, ie Ukraine, emerges that he essentially demonstrates the deep shallowness and superficiality of a relationship with Russia.
“I think the Assad family living circumstances are about to take a precipitous fall as a result.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed that Assad had been given asylum in Russia, saying the decision was made by Putin.
Asked about a possible meeting between the Russian president and Assad, Peskov said none was currently in the official Kremlin schedule.
Videos showed Syrians strolling through Assad’s palaces on Sunday following his sudden ousting, wandering from room to room, posing for photographs, and with some taking away items of furniture or ornaments.
People entering the Al-Rawda Presidential Palace, as children ran through the grand, formal rooms and men slid a large trunk across the ornate patterned floor.
Several men marched out of the building carrying chairs over their shoulders. In a storeroom, cupboards had been ransacked and objects strewn across the floor.
Video of another palace, the older-style Muhajreen Palace, showed groups of men and women walking across a white marble floor and through sets of tall wooden doors.
A man carried a vase in his hand, and a large cabinet stood empty with its doors ajar. Chandeliers hung from the ceiling.
