Russian President Vladimir Putin denied on Thursday that Russia's nine-year intervention in Syria had been a failure, but expressed concern about Israel's military operations there since the toppling of his ally Bashar Assad.
Putin, addressing multiple questions on Syria at a marathon annual news conference, said Moscow had made proposals to the new rulers in Damascus to maintain Russia's air and naval bases in the country.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin
(Photo: Sputnik/Vyacheslav Prokofyev/Pool via REUTERS )
In his first public comments on the subject, he said he had not yet met Assad since the former president fled to Moscow earlier this month, but that he planned to do so.
Putin played down the damage to Moscow from the fall of Assad, saying its military intervention in Syria since 2015 had helped prevent the country from becoming a "terrorist enclave." He said Israel was the "main beneficiary" of the current situation.
Soon after Assad's fall, Israel moved troops into the buffer zone on the Syrian side of the dividing line with the Golan Heights and conducted hundreds of air strikes to destroy Syrian army weapons and equipment.
"Russia condemns the seizure of any Syrian territories. This is obvious," Putin said, saying Israel had penetrated to a depth of 25 km (16 miles) and got as far as fortifications that were built for Syria by the former Soviet Union.
Putin said Russia hoped that Israel would at some point leave Syrian territory, but "I have the impression that not only are they not going to leave, but they are going to reinforce there." He said Turkey was also intervening in pursuit of its own security interests with regard to Kurdish fighters in Syria whom Ankara regards as terrorists.
"We all understand this. There will be many problems. But we are on the side of international law and for the sovereignty of all countries, while respecting their territorial integrity, meaning Syria," Putin said.
He said most people in Syria with whom Russia had been in contact about the future of its two main military bases in Syria were supportive of them staying, but that talks were ongoing. Russia had proposed using its Hmeimim air base to deliver humanitarian aid, and had also evacuated 4,000 Iranian fighters from Syria via that route, he said.
In response to a question on the subject from a U.S. journalist, Putin said he would ask Assad about the fate of U.S. reporter Austin Tice, who is missing in Syria, and was ready to ask Syria's new rulers about Tice's whereabouts too.
Russia's future with Trump
Putin added that he was ready to compromise over Ukraine in possible talks with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on ending the war and had no conditions for starting talks with the Ukrainian authorities. Trump, a self-styled master of brokering agreements and author of the 1987 book "Trump: The Art of the Deal," has vowed to swiftly end the conflict, but has not yet given any details on how he might achieve that.
Putin, fielding questions on state TV during his annual question and answer session with the Russian people, told a reporter for a U.S. news channel that he was ready to meet Trump, whom he said he had not spoken to for years.
Asked what he might be able to offer Trump, Putin dismissed an assertion that Russia was in a weak position, saying that Russia had gotten much stronger since he ordered troops into Ukraine in 2022.
"We have always said that we are ready for negotiations and compromises," Putin said, after also saying that Russian forces, advancing across the entire front, were moving toward achieving their primary goals in Ukraine.
"Soon, those Ukrainians who want to fight will run out, in my opinion, soon there will be no one left who wants to fight. We are ready, but the other side needs to be ready for both negotiations and compromises."
It was reported last month that Putin was open to discussing a Ukraine cease-fire deal with Trump, but ruled out making any major territorial concessions and insisted Kyiv abandon its ambitions to join NATO. Putin said on Thursday that Russia had no conditions to start talks with Ukraine and was ready to negotiate with anyone, including President Volodymyr Zelensky.
But he said any deal could only be signed with Ukraine's legitimate authorities, which for now the Kremlin considered to be only the Ukrainian parliament.
Zelensky, whose term has technically expired but who has delayed an election because of the war, would need to be re-elected for Moscow to consider him a legitimate signatory to any deal to ensure it was legally watertight, said Putin.
Putin dismissed the idea of agreeing a temporary truce with Kyiv, saying only a long-lasting peace deal with Ukraine would suffice.
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Any talks should take as their starting point a preliminary agreement reached between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators in the early weeks of the war at talks in Istanbul, which was never implemented, he added.
Some Ukrainian politicians regard that draft deal as akin to a capitulation which would have neutered Ukraine's military and political ambitions.