Russia brought former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad to the country “in the safest way possible” after the Syrian government collapsed, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said in an exclusive interview with NBC News on December 10.
“His safety has been guaranteed and that shows that Russia acts as required in such an exceptional situation,” said Sergei Ryabkov.
The information made Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov the first Russian official to confirm Mr. Assad's presence in Russia.
"I don't know his situation right now, and I'm not the right person to talk about what happened and how things were resolved," Deputy Minister Ryabkov added.
Mr. Ryabkov said that Russia will continue to support the former Syrian leader.
“Russia is not a party to the convention establishing the International Criminal Court,” Mr. Ryabkov said when asked whether the Kremlin would hand Mr. Assad over to an international court.
Syria is not a member of the International Criminal Court based in The Hague (Netherlands), nor does it accept the court's jurisdiction.
Deputy Minister Ryabkov added that regardless of who ultimately leads Syria, be it the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) opposition group that has led the offensive across Syria to overthrow Mr. Assad or another party, Russia strongly believes that Syria "should be sovereign, united and intact."
The Russian deputy foreign minister also called on Israel to "seriously consider what is happening in the Golan Heights," after Prime Minister Netanyahu ordered the Israeli army to take control of a demilitarized buffer zone with Syria established under a 1974 ceasefire agreement. Mr. Ryabkov stressed that Israel should abide by that agreement and should not "violate" Syria's territorial integrity.
