Syrian President Bashar al-Assad visited Moscow on Tuesday at the invitation of his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, to discuss the security situation in country that is in the midst of a nearly five-year-long civil war, and laying the base for a long-term political settlement, the Kremlin said Wednesday.
The visit is apparently Assad’s first outside his country since 2011, and it shows the Syrian leader’s confidence after the Russian military intervention in the civil war began on September 30 on his behalf. Russia’s operations are ostensibly against the Islamic State, but its airstrikes and missile strikes have reportedly also hit other groups—some backed by the West—that are fighting Assad.
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