The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has travelled this Tuesday by surprise to Damascus and met with syrian leader Bashar al-Assad. The visit of Putin to Syria, where it deployed its air force in 2015 and in the who has visited one of the headquarters of the Russian troops in the country, coincides with the escalation of tension between Iran, one of the allies of the Asad regime, and Washington following the assassination in Iraq of general iranian Qasem Soleimani with a drone an american. The US maintains a base in eastern Syria, making that country another focus of the turmoil.
Putin, whose support for Assad has been crucial in the war in syria and that has become a power, and arbitrator in the area, not traveling the country from 2017, when he visited Russian troops on the basis of Khmeimim. On this occasion, which coincides with the celebrations of the orthodox Christmas, the Russian leader has visited the headquarters of the group of the Russian Armed Forces in the syrian capital. There, he witnessed a military parade and was received by Assad, as reported by the spokesman of the Kremlin, Dmitri Peskov. “The two leaders listened to reports of military on several regions of the country,” added Peskov. Syrian troops and Russian are immersed in an offensive air and land in the province of Idlib (northwest), the last bastion of opposition in the country.
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The Russian support has been key to helping Assad to regain almost all the territory of the hands of the insurgents who attempted to overthrow him during the civil war that began almost nine years. During the meeting of this Tuesday, to which Putin has gone with his Defense minister, Sergey Shoigu, according to the images disseminated by the state agency syria, has pointed to The Assad the “progress immense” in the country. “Putin pointed out that we can now say with confidence that it has traveled a great distance to restore the State of syria and the territorial integrity of the country”, said the spokesman of the Kremlin, cited by the state agency Tass.
it Is planned that Putin will direct then to Istanbul to meet tomorrow with his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and participate in the commissioning of the pipeline, Turk Stream, which will transport the fuel to Russian to Turkey by the Black sea.
