"No dinners in Kremlin": What awaits Assad in Russia

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who lost power as a result of the Syrian opposition offensive, is in Moscow. Several years ago, foreign media claimed that Assad's family owned housing in the Russian capital.
According to RTVI, The press secretary of the Russian president Dmitry Peskov did not comment on the data on Assad's location, but noted that the issue of granting asylum cannot be decided without the head of state. He also noted that President Vladimir Putin does not plan to meet with Assad. Russian Telegram channels claimed that Assad arrived in Moscow with his family in late November amid the advance of rebel groups in Syria and allegedly stayed at the Four Seasons Hotel. Assad later returned to his homeland, while his family remained in the Russian capital, the VChK-OGPU channel* wrote.
The Financial Times and the anti-corruption NGO Global Witness claimed back in 2019 that Assad's maternal relatives had become the owners of 19 apartments in the Moscow City towers "City of Capitals" and "Federation" over six years, worth a total of $40 million.
According to investigators, the property belongs to Assad's cousins, Hafez, Iyad and Ihab Makhlouf, his sister Kinda Makhlouf and Razan Othman, the wife of another cousin of the Syrian president, businessman Rami Makhlouf. As the FT reported, Hafez also has a three-room apartment a few minutes' drive from Moscow City.Assad's staff - translators, drivers, and security guards - also moved to Russia.
The US State Department has estimated the Assad family's net worth at $1-2 billion, but it is difficult to calculate more precisely because the assets are "dispersed and hidden in numerous accounts, real estate portfolios, corporations and offshore companies." According to The Wall Street Journal, the value of the assets of the family of former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad may reach 12 billion dollars. At the moment, an international hunt has begun for the funds of the family of the former president of Syria. But it will be very difficult to find and freeze them. As The Wall Street Journal wrote, Bashar al-Assad and his late father Hafez al-Assad used relatives to hide capital in other countries.
"There will be no cosy dinners in the Kremlin, but Bashar al-Assad may still be sipping champagne and eating caviar in his new life of luxury in exile," the Telegraph says .
Alex Younger, the former head of Britain's MI6 intelligence agency, suggested that Assad and his family would instead face a "dramatic deterioration in their living conditions" compared to the luxury they had become accustomed to in Damascus. Younger explained that Russia had a "far more important priority, which is Ukraine."