Images shared on social media have illustrated the anger that Syrian rebels fighting President Bashar al-Assad feel toward his ally Vladimir Putin.
The Russian leader has been indispensable in propping up Assad’s regime during the brutal Syrian civil war that started in 2011 but has been essentially frozen over the last four years. Russia’s bombardment of Aleppo in 2016 kept the northern city in the hands of the Syrian government until the capture of its ancient citadel last week by rebels led by the Sunni Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).
However, images that have emerged since the rebellion began show the extent that the rebels consider the Russian president to be inextricably linked with the Assad regime in Syria’s capital, Damascus. Newsweek has emailed the Russian Foreign Ministry for comment.
#Syria: a portrait of dictator #Assad, and his facilitator #Putin, meets the boot of a Syrian rebel.
— Thomas van Linge (@ThomasVLinge) November 28, 2024
Western #Aleppo countryside. pic.twitter.com/pblUxoEbOQ
The journalist Thomas van Linge posted on X, formerly Twitter, a video he said was from Western Aleppo of an image of the Russian and Syrian leaders being taken down from a residence and stomped on. “A portrait of dictator Assad, and his facilitator Putin, meets the boot of a Syrian rebel,” said the post.
As well as toppling a statue of Assad’s late brother, separate images published by British newspaper The Sun also showed rebels tearing and burning a Russian flag in Basel Square, Aleppo, in an apparent warning to Putin.
In another sign of solidarity with his ally, Putin has stepped into the fray again with Russian airstrikes targeting Aleppo, and parts of Idlib and Hama provinces.
A Syrian opposition fighter takes a picture of a comrade stepping on a portrait of Syrian President Bashar Assad in Aleppo, early Saturday Nov. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed) (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)
However, much has changed in the years since Putin’s intervention in Syria’s civil war. The Russian president’s invasion of Ukraine is nearly three years old, and Israel’s war against Hamas, as well as its targeting of Hezbollah and Assad’s ally Iran, adds to the complications.
“The Assad regime will attempt to persuade the Russians to provide backing that will be key in the regime’s counteroffensive against the latest rebel advances in northern Syria,” said Rateb Atassi, senior associate at geopolitical and cyber risk consultancy S-RM, “but the Russians will be stretched thin.”
Newsweek/ Yahoo