Putin Denies Russian Defeat in Syria, Says He Plans to Meet Assad

Russian President Vladimir Putin holds his annual end-of-year press conference in Moscow on December 19, 2024. (Photo by Alexander NEMENOV / AFP)
Russian President Vladimir Putin holds his annual end-of-year press conference in Moscow on December 19, 2024. (Photo by Alexander NEMENOV / AFP)
TT

Putin Denies Russian Defeat in Syria, Says He Plans to Meet Assad

Russian President Vladimir Putin holds his annual end-of-year press conference in Moscow on December 19, 2024. (Photo by Alexander NEMENOV / AFP)
Russian President Vladimir Putin holds his annual end-of-year press conference in Moscow on December 19, 2024. (Photo by Alexander NEMENOV / AFP)

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Russia had not been defeated in Syria and that Moscow had made proposals to the new rulers in Damascus to maintain Russia's military bases there.
In his first public comments on the subject, Putin said he had not yet met former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad since was overthrown and forced to flee to Moscow earlier this month, but that he planned to do so.
In response to a question on the subject from a US journalist, Putin said he would ask Assad about the fate of US reporter Austin Tice, who is missing in Syria, and was ready to ask Syria's new rulers about Tice's whereabouts too.
"I will tell you frankly, I have not yet seen President Assad since he came to Moscow. But I plan to do so. I will definitely talk to him," said Putin.
He said most people in Syria with whom Russia had been in contact about the future of its two main military bases in Syria were supportive of them staying, but that talks were ongoing, Reuters said.
Russia, which intervened in Syria in 2015 and turned the tide of the civil war there in Assad's favor, had also told other countries that they could use its airbase and naval base to bring in humanitarian aid for Syria, he said.
"You want to portray everything that is happening in Syria as some kind of failure, a defeat for Russia. I assure you, it is not. And I'll tell you why. We came to Syria 10 years ago to prevent a terrorist enclave from being created there," said Putin.
"On the whole, we have achieved our goal. It is not for nothing that today many European countries and the United States want to establish relations with them (Syria's new rulers). If they are terrorist organizations, why are you (the West) going there? So that means they have changed."



20 Migrants Die in Shipwreck Off Tunisia

Tunisian coast guards try to stop migrants at sea during their attempt to cross to Italy, off the coast off Sfax, Tunisia April 27, 2023. REUTERS/Jihed Abidellaoui /File Photo
Tunisian coast guards try to stop migrants at sea during their attempt to cross to Italy, off the coast off Sfax, Tunisia April 27, 2023. REUTERS/Jihed Abidellaoui /File Photo
TT

20 Migrants Die in Shipwreck Off Tunisia

Tunisian coast guards try to stop migrants at sea during their attempt to cross to Italy, off the coast off Sfax, Tunisia April 27, 2023. REUTERS/Jihed Abidellaoui /File Photo
Tunisian coast guards try to stop migrants at sea during their attempt to cross to Italy, off the coast off Sfax, Tunisia April 27, 2023. REUTERS/Jihed Abidellaoui /File Photo

Tunisian authorities recovered the bodies of 20 people who appeared to have drowned after a shipwreck off the country's Mediterranean coastline, near a popular point of departure for migrants attempting to reach Europe by boat.
The country's National Guard said in a statement on Wednesday that coast guard members dispatched to the sinking ship rescued five people and retrieved the bodies of 20 others 15 miles (24 kilometers) off the coast north of Sfax. The coastline is roughly 81 miles (130 kilometers) from the Italian island of Lampedusa.
According to The Associated Press, the National Guard said that it continued to search for missing people and did not indicate how many may have been on board when the ship set off.
With assistance from Europe, authorities in Tunisia have strengthened the policing of their borders in an effort to prevent deaths at sea and combat smugglers and migrants crossing illegally to southern Europe. Yet drownings and corpses washing ashore are regularly reported, including last week when authorities found the bodies of nine people who appeared to have drowned at sea along the same stretch of coastline.
The iron boats that migrants and smugglers use to attempt to cross the Mediterranean are often unseaworthy. Though there is no official count, international groups and Tunisian NGOs believe hundreds have perished at sea this year. The United Nations' refugee agency, UNHCR, estimates more than 1,100 have died or gone missing in the central Mediterranean off the coasts of Tunisia and Libya. The Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights believes between 600 and 700 people have died or gone missing off the coast of Tunisia.
More than 19,000 migrants have embarked from Tunisia and arrived in Italy this year, including many who subsequently applied for asylum, according to UNHCR. That's far fewer than the more than 96,000 who made the journey by the same point in 2023. The majority who have arrived in Italy in 2024 have been from Bangladesh, Tunisia and Syria.
There is no official numbers regarding migrants in Tunisia. However, thousands are living in makeshift camps among olive trees near Sfax's coastline.