Ousted dictator Bashar al-Assad should move to Mariupol and help rebuild Ukraine in return for Russian citizenship, a Russian MP has suggested.
Assad has reportedly found refuge in Moscow along with his family, following his surrender to rebel forces in Syria and subsequent escape from the country over the weekend.
Since the capture of Damascus, Assad has not made any public appearances, leaving his whereabouts and future plans uncertain, while Russian politicians deliberate over his situation.
Dmitry Kuznetsov MP suggested Assad could join Russians in occupied Mariupol as authorities begin to rebuild the city.
Kuznetsov suggested to gazeta.ru in Moscow that the Assads might settle in the war-torn Donbass region, particularly in one of the newly constructed homes in Mariupol, potentially offering aid and support.
‘I am in favor of [Assad] proving himself in service to the Russian people, and after that – for his contribution to the recovery of Donbass – we could consider the issue of citizenship,’ he added.
Assad is believed to have been given safe passage to Moscow as rebels closed in on Damascus last weekend. Russian intelligence reportedly had to persuade him to leave in last moment drama, advising him he would lose if he faced down their forces.
An explosion rocks an apartment building after Russian’s army tank fires in Mariupol, Ukraine, Friday, March 11, 2022
An aerial picture shows a view the destruction at the Yarmouk camp for Palestinian refugees and its cemetery, in the south of Damascus, Syria on December 14
Bashar Al-Assad attends Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, November, 11, 2023
Kuznetsov suggested putting Assad to work amid growing debate over his future in Russia.
‘He could also support Emir Kusturica to film a movie in Donbass [sic] based on [19th century Russian writer, Fyodor] Dostoevsky,’ he suggested.
According to the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin made personal assurances to grant asylum to Assad.
But a permanent decision on his future in Russia is to be determined.
Alexey Zhuravlev, also an MP, urged on Telegram soon after that Assad should be granted citizenship, in spite of the mixed feelings he commands in Russia.
‘Russia treats all its allies humanely, albeit defeated ones, and this, by the way, is a cardinal difference from the US, which is very quick to scrap former friends,’ he wrote.Â
‘If [ousted, pro-Russian Ukrainian former president] Viktor Yanukovych was able to obtain Russian citizenship, then why not give it to Assad as well?’
Assad’s family reportedly owns at least 18 apartments in Moscow, worth some $40million, according to a 2019 investigation by the FT.Â
Russia had long supported Assad’s regime against various rebel factions through 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 to celebrate their liberation from the Assad regime in Damascus Square on December 13
A Russian soldier in a military convoy stands on a roadside because of an engine failure as they travel through Hmeimim air base in Syria’s coastal Latakia, Syria, December 14, amid reports Russia is now pulling its assets out of the country
Assad was ostensibly granted asylum on ‘humanitarian grounds’ in the culmination of a lighting offensive by rebel factions launched on November 28.Â
Ahead of the fall of the capital, it was reported his family had fled to Moscow, where his eldest son, Hafez, was already a PhD student working on a doctoral dissertation.
Assad’s British-born wife, Asma, could in theory return to the UK, though it is believed her father, Dr Fawaz al-Akhras is also already in Russia.
It is unlikely Assad will be sent to Ukraine, per Kuznetsov’s unusual comments.
Moscow has, however, been making efforts to rebuild and Russify Mariupol, which it captured months into the war after a brutal siege.
The UN estimates that as much as 90 per cent 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 died in the city, from a pre-war population of some 430,000.
Some 100,000 remained after the siege. Russia claims more than 300,000 are now living there.
A woman reacts during the funeral of her son at a cemetery in Vinnytsia. Nazary Gryntsevych, a Ukrainian soldier of the Azov Brigade, was one of the youngest soldiers to hold the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol during the Russian siege
A residential building destroyed in the course of Ukraine-Russia conflict in the southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine April 14, 2022
A Russian soldier patrols at the Mariupol drama theatre in April 2022
Property developers have been among the beneficiaries of Russia’s plan to rebuild the city in its own image, receiving ‘lucrative’ contracts as locals live in ‘half built’ homes and ‘dangerous, leaky apartments’, according to the FT.
Rights groups documented Russian war crimes throughout the brutal campaign on Mariupol in early 2022, including the bombing of a theatre sheltering civilians, which killed hundreds, and an attack on a maternity ward.
The Red Cross said in 2022 the situation in Mariupol was so harrowing that people were ‘attacking each other for food’ on a day in which not a single person was evacuated to safety.
Sasha Volkov, the delegation head of the Red Cross in the city, told the BBC there is ‘some sort of a black market with vegetables’ but other food is not available.
