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Monday, July 9, 2012

Syria: why Putin abandons Bashar al-Assad

Pool photo by Sergei Chirikov

Vladimir Putin has finally yielded to the pressure of the United Nations and European countries on the Syrian issue. The Russian president has said to his American counterpart that Russia is now ready to accept a new president in Syria.
This new position of Russia came after hundreds of defections within the Syrian military, some of which were high-ranked officers.  Besides, air force officers increasingly refuse to attack civilians and rebels. In some regions, the fighting between the free army’s rebels and the loyalist forces turned nearly to civil war.
According to some Western journalists in Syria, Bashar al-Assad’s regime no longer makes confidence in the Alawite officers and in the joint militias Druzes-Alawi. Russia knows that if it stops supporting Assad, the situation risks deterioration and Moscow would be the big loser. Putin may have proposed for Assad and some of his family members to leave Damascus for Russia. Moscow has also chosen who is going to succeed to him and to protect the Alawite minority.

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