Bashar al-Assad, the former Syrian dictator who relinquished his rule in November 2024 and fled to Moscow, is now living in Russian luxury and “brushing up on ophthalmology,” the Guardian reported on Monday, citing sources close to the family.
A friend of the Assad family told the Guardian that “he is studying Russian and brushing up on his ophthalmology again. It’s a passion of his; he obviously doesn’t need the money,” suggesting his target clientele would be Moscow's wealthy elite.
Relationship with Putin
According to the Guardian, a year on from the fall of the Assad Regime in Syria, the family is living a quiet and isolated life of luxury in Moscow and the UAE. They are thought to live in Rublyovka, a gated community of the Russian elite, where former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, who fled Kyiv in 2014, is believed to live.
Assad was deposed after 14 years of civil war in Syria that killed over 600,000 people and displaced nearly 14 million. Despite granting Assad political asylum, Putin has little respect for the ex-dictator. A source close to the Kremlin told the Guardian that Assad was largely “irrelevant” to Putin and the Russian political elite.
“Putin has little patience for leaders who lose their grip on power, and Assad is no longer seen as a figure of influence or even an interesting guest to invite to dinner,” the source said.
The family friend told the Guardian, “[Assad] has very little, if any, contact with the outside world.” He is living a cushy life in Moscow but is reportedly cut off from the elite Syrian and Russian circles he once enjoyed.
In fleeing Syria with his sons in early December, without warning extended family or close allies, Assad isolated his family. A friend of Assad’s brother Maher told the Guardian, “It was Maher, not Bashar, who helped others escape. Basher only cared about himself.”
The Assad family now
Immediately after escaping Syria, Assad’s main concern seems to have been his wife’s health. Asma, the British-born former first lady of Syria, had had leukaemia for years, but her condition became critical, and in the months before the fall of the Assad regime, she was receiving treatment in Moscow.
A source told the Guardian that Asma recovered after experimental therapy, and Assad now wants to talk about his side of the story. However, Russia appears to have blocked Assad from making any public appearances, according to Russia’s ambassador to Iraq, Elbrus Kutrashev.
The family, without Bashar, was seen in public in June when his daughter Zein graduated with a degree in international relations from MGIMO, the elite Moscow university attended by much of Russia’s ruling class.
A family friend said to The Guardian that Assad’s children’s lives have continued with relatively little disruption in Moscow, noting that “they’re kind of dazed. I think they’re still in a bit of shock.”