President-elect Donald Trump responded to the downfall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime on Sunday, suggesting that Russia lost a key ally in the Middle East because of its war with Ukraine.
Assad reportedly fled Syria over the weekend as rebel forces took over the capital of Damascus. Assad’s regime fell after rebel forces led by the terror group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) blitzed across the country in a sudden resurgence of fighting in Syria’s civil war, largely stalled in recent years.
“Assad is gone. He has fled his country. His protector, Russia, Russia, Russia, led by Vladimir Putin, was not interested in protecting him any longer,” Trump wrote. “There was no reason for Russia to be there in the first place. They lost all interest in Syria because of Ukraine, where close to 600,000 Russian soldiers lay wounded or dead, in a war that should never have…
