Who has been granted asylum in Moscow

Assad's dictatorship has collapsed; he has found refuge in a luxury residential complex near Moscow, Russia. Like other dictators, autocrats and those who understand Putin are making Russia their new home.

Bruno Nellwolf/ch media

Within days, dictator Bashar al-Assad’s empire collapsed. He controlled Syria for 24 years. Thanks to Russian rockets and bombs, he was able to repel the first coup attempt twelve years ago, and now the 56-year rule of Alevi Assad's family is over.

Vladimir Putin granted asylum to the 59-year-old “on humanitarian grounds”. By doing so, the Russian president is at least sending a signal to his allied tyrants that they will still find a safe place in Russia after their reign of terror ends. Assad and his family are in “good” company; he is not the first tyrant to find refuge in an aristocratic address in the village of Balvia near Moscow. Overview:

Viktor Yanukovych

His Moscow-dependent policies, driven by criminal business interests, sparked the Ukrainian revolution. In November 2013, hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated in Ukraine in support of the country's pro-European line after then-President Viktor Yanukovych refused to sign an agreement with the European Union. In February 2014, the violent and deadly conflict reached its peak.

On February 22, 2014, under pressure from the Independence Square protests, Yanukovych fled Kiev and headed to Moscow's posh Balvia neighborhood. Presumably with the help of the Russian Black Sea Fleet based in Zakrimiya. In Ukraine, the 73-year-old was sentenced in absentia to 13 years in prison for treason. Apparently, Putin wanted to reinstate Yanukovych as Ukrainian president after his swift invasion of Kiev. However, only as a second choice after the jailed oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk. But the Russians' quick victory yielded little results, and the president, who had arrived from Donetsk, was still in Moscow.

Former President of Ukraine: Viktor Yanukovych.Photo credit: AP/AP

Mikola Asaro

Yanukovych's Prime Minister Mykola Azarov also fled with Yanukovych in 2014. First to Vienna, where part of his family still lives a “luxurious” life, as Austria's Standard reported earlier this year. Azarov himself has been living in Moscow ever since. In January 2024, Ukraine's Prosecutor General's Office filed charges against fugitive former head of government Mykola Azarov for colluding with Moscow and smearing the country's reputation. He called for the “denazification” of Ukraine and denied the Butcha massacre.

Mikola Asaro.Image source: IMAGO/Xinhua News Agency

Slobodan Milosevic

Yanukovych became a neighbor of the family of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic in Barvia. Also known as the “Butcher of the Balkans” because he was primarily responsible for the 1995 Srebrenica civil war and massacre. He was arrested in Belgrade in April 2001 and tried for crimes against humanity in The Hague, where he died in prison in 2006. Immediately after his arrest, his wife Mila Markovich, son Marko and brother Borislav Milosevic settled in a luxurious residence in Moscow. Malkovich died in Sochi in 2019.

Slobodan Milosevic.Image source: AP/ICTY

Askar Akayev

Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev also sought refuge in the elegant settlement west of Moscow. Not only was he the first independent president of Kyrgyzstan, he was also the first president to be overthrown by a people's revolution. This happened in the Tulip Revolution of 2005, the first of three revolutions in the former Central Asian Soviet republics in recent decades. Akayev, a mathematician and physicist by training, paid tribute to science in the Russian capital. He was allowed to return from exile in 2021.

Askar Akayev, the first president of Kyrgyzstan.Photo credit: IMAGO / sepp spiegl

Aslan Abbaschiz

The leader of Georgia's Ajaria region, Aslan Abashidze, has also been granted asylum by Putin. Mikhail Saakashvili led the Rose Revolution there in 2003, and Abashidze later fought against the Georgian government in Tbilisi in 2004. After the power struggle was resolved, on May 6, 2004, then Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov picked him up on a private plane.

Aslan Abashidze fled to Moscow in 2004.Image source: Associated Press

Erich Honecker

After the reunification of Germany in 1991, East German dictator Erich Honecker and his wife Margot fled to the then Soviet Union. He wanted to avoid prosecution. They flew from Soviet bases to Moscow to seek political asylum. But the Soviet Union was in transition, with Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin fighting for power until the Soviet Union's final collapse in December. There was no place for the former leader of the German Communist Party. In 1992, Yeltsin extradited the couple back to Germany. It was not until early 1993 that he was able to travel to Chile, where he died in 1994.

East German party and state leader Erich Honecker.Picture: www.imago-images.de

Other “asylum seekers”

Edward Snowden and Karin Nessel also arrived in Russia. Snowden became one of the world's most famous whistleblowers for leaking secret documents from the U.S. intelligence agency NSA in 2013. As an employee of the U.S. Secret Service, he exposed illegal mass surveillance operations, which is why he was prosecuted in the United States. To escape justice, the 41-year-old fled to Moscow and was granted Russian citizenship in 2022.

Former US intelligence official Edward Snowden.Image: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

The then-Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl attracted attention when she knelt down in front of Putin. In August 2018, she curtsied at her wedding in Gamlitz. The 59-year-old has transformed from a scientist into a Russian propagandist and Putin apologist. She is now the chairman of a state-owned Russian think tank called Gorky, which investigates Russia's geopolitical interests. So she moved to Russia with her pony, where the Russian Air Force flew her to St. Petersburg. (aargauerzeitung.ch)

An overview of the most important events in the Middle East, continuously updated.

(red)