Proposal to send to Mariupol, will Russia grant citizenship to Assad?

Last Updated on December 17, 2024 7:34 am

Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad has fled the country to Russia in the face of a fierce campaign by rebels. The country’s lawmaker Dmitry Kuznetsov has proposed using him to rebuild the war-torn city of Mariupol, which is now occupied by Russia. He said that if necessary, the issue of granting Russian citizenship to Assad will also be considered.

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and some other rebel groups took control of the Syrian capital Damascus on December 8 in a 12-day offensive. President Bashar al-Assad, who had been in power for 24 years, fled the country by plane in the resulting situation.

This ended the 53-year rule of the Assad family. The Syrian people are celebrating the fall of the tyrannical dictator.

The Kremlin said that Assad and his family have been granted political asylum in Russia. He has not appeared in public or made any statements since the fall of the Syrian capital on December 8. It is also unclear what his next plans are.

In this context, Dmitry Kuznetsov, a member of the Russian parliament’s foreign relations committee, has suggested relocating Assad to the city of Mariupol, which was captured from Ukraine.

“I believe that Bashar al-Assad and his family could become benefactors of a war-torn area of ​​Donbas and move to one of the newly built houses in Mariupol,” he told a local media outlet.

The Black Sea port city of Mariupol is currently part of the Russian Donetsk region. Russian troops took control of it in 2022 after three months of fighting. Russian authorities are working to rebuild the city.

The Russian politician added, “I am in favor of giving Assad the opportunity to serve the Russian people. “We can consider granting him citizenship after the reconstruction of Donbass.”

Earlier, another Russian lawmaker, Alexei Zhuravlev, called for granting Assad Russian citizenship. He argued that Assad had done enough for Russia.

Senior Russian diplomat Mikhail Ulyanov argued in favor of granting Assad asylum, saying that Moscow “does not betray its friends even in difficult situations.”

Moscow provided military support to the Assad government in fighting rebels during the Syrian civil war in 2015. The future of Russia’s military bases in Syria is now uncertain after Assad’s fall.

However, the Russian Foreign Ministry said it was continuing to communicate with the HTS-led authorities in Damascus and that its diplomats and military personnel were not currently under threat.