Eurasia Press & News
A leak of videos featuring Bashar Al-Assad has sparked outrage in Syria and beyond, with the latest revelation involving his Russian ally, Vladimir Putin.
Bashar Al-Assad mocked his Russian ally, President Vladimir Putin, according to a series of leaked videos where the former dictator shows his callous disregard for Syrians’ suffering.
Intimate conversations featuring Assad and his now deceased media aide, Luna al-Shibl, were released by Al-Arabiya over the weekend, and likely prove to be hugely embarrassing for the Moscow-exiled Syrian dictator.
This includes footage where he appears to mock Putin about his appearance, despite the Russian president propping up his faltering regime and then providing him with refuge in Moscow when his rule collapsed following a rebel offensive one year ago today.
In the video, Shibl commented on Putin’s plump appearance, something some had put down as possible side effects of medication due to alleged health issues.
“He’s full of operations,” he said while driving a car through the war-torn Damascus suburbs. “All of him is operations,” Shibl appears to respond, describing a video of “bloated” Putin as “scandalous”.
She then goes on to say: “That video exposes him a lot,” referring to his appearance.
The comments are widely believed to be a swipe at the 73-year-old’s alleged use of cosmetic surgery. Assad did not defend the Russian president, who at the time had wasted billions of dollars propping up his now defunct regime, despite Shibl’s derogatory remarks.
When rebels overthrew the Syrian regime on 8 December 2024, Assad and his family were given refuge in Russia, with Assad allegedly whiling the hours away in his Moscow penthouse playing video games, reports state.
There have been no sightings of Assad in public since his downfall, and he has reportedly been banned from commenting on the political situation in Syria.
Syria’s interim president, Ahmed Al-Sharaa, has repaired relations with Russia, a country that launched thousands of air strikes on opposition towns, visiting Moscow to meet Putin, and with regular security meetings between the two sides.
Sharaa has acknowledged that Russia allowed last year’s rebel offensive to succeed by not targeting the convoys moving on Damascus, while opposition fighters did not target Russian military facilities during the campaign or since.
Assad has also been condemned for mocking the people of Ghouta, a Damascus suburb levelled by regime and Russian bombing, as well as showing a complete lack of respect for his allies in the leaked videos, including special forces commander Suhayl Al-Hassan.
Russia intervened in the war to bolster Assad in September 2015, following a series of defeats of the opposition in northern Syria.
The video leaks coincided with the first anniversary of the liberation of Syria from Assad, with celebrations held across the country.
