The Assads in Moscow. 😳
A New Life of the Toppled-Up Leader 🤔

It took 14 years, during which 620,000 were killed and nearly 14 million displaced, but eventually the doctor’s turn came and Assad was deposed, fleeing to Moscow in the middle of the night. 🕰

But after relinquishing his dictatorship for a gilded exile in Moscow, Assad is reportedly giving his medical training another go. The leader of the Middle East’s last Ba’athist regime now sits in the classroom, taking ophthalmology lessons, according to a well-placed source. 👩‍🔬

“He’s studying Russian and brushing up on his ophthalmology again,” said a friend of the Assad family who has kept in touch with them. “It’s a passion of his, he obviously doesn’t need the money.

Even before the war in Syria began, he used to regularly practice his ophthalmology in Damascus,” they continued, suggesting the wealthy elite in Moscow could be his target clientele. 🍀

A year after his regime was toppled in Syria, the Assad family are living an isolated, quiet life of luxury in Moscow and the UAE. 🏙

A friend of the family, sources in Russia and Syria, as well as leaked data, helped give rare insight into the lives of the now reclusive family who once ruled over Syria with an iron fist. 🛡

The Assads are not wanting for money. After being cut off from much of the world’s financial system by western sanctions in 2011 after Assad’s bloody crackdown on protesters, the family put much of their wealth in Moscow, where western regulators could not touch it. 💰

Despite their cushy abode, the family are cut off from the elite Syrian and Russian circles they once enjoyed. Bashar’s 11th-hour flight from Syria left his cronies feeling abandoned and his Russian handlers prevent him from contacting senior regime officials. 🚫

Assad fled with his sons out of Damascus in the early hours of 8 December 2024, as Syrian rebels approached the capital from the north and the south.

They were met by a Russian military escort and were taken to the Russian Khmeimim airbase, where they were flown out of the country. ✈️

Assad did not warn his extended family or close regime allies of the impending collapse, instead leaving them to fend for themselves.

According to a source familiar with the details of Asma’s health, the former first lady has recovered after experimental therapy under the supervision of Russia’s security services 🩺

With Asma’s health stabilised, the former dictator is keen to get his side of the story out. He has lined up interviews with RT and a popular rightwing American podcaster, but is waiting for approval from Russian authorities to make a media appearance. 📻

Life for the Assad children in contrast seems to continue with relatively little disruption, as they adjust to a new life as Moscow elite.

The family friend, who met some of the children a few months ago, said: “They’re kind of dazed. I think they’re still in a bit of a shock. They’re just kind of getting used to life without being the first family.” 🧑‍🦳

Originally, the Assad family were hoping to relocate from Moscow to the UAE. The UAE was a much more familiar location for them.

They did not speak Russian and struggled to locate themselves within Russian social circles, according to the family friend.

However, the family now realise that permanently relocating will not happen for a while, as even the UAE, which houses many of the world’s shady elite, is uncomfortable hosting Assad. 🏜

Kamal Alam, a former non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council who engaged in track two diplomacy during the Syrian civil war, said: “It took the fall of the regime for those pictures to come out. I would say that the family is very private and they never liked to be exposed and they still won’t going forward.” 📸

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