OPINION — Is Vladimir Putin repeating the errors made by the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad? Many believe the answer may be yes.
In November 2024, Assad’s autocratic regime collapsed with almost lightning speed after his years of despotic reign over the people of Syria. According to the Washington Post, the sudden demise of Assad’s regime was directly related to Assad’s refusal to accept opportunities offered to him by the United States and Turkiye to make compromises in Syria’s policies in return for a lessening of the diplomatic and economic pressure Damascus had been living under for years.
In the case of the U.S., Washington proposed to Assad that in exchange for his agreement to deny Iran the ability to continue to use Syrian territory to resupply Lebanese Hezbollah (LH), the U.S. would remove some of the sanctions it had placed on the Syrian economy. Separately, Turkiye proposed the normalization of relations between Ankara and Damascus in exchange for the Syrian regime’s commitment to restrain armed Kurdish groups operating along the Turkish–Syrian border – groups that were viewed as threats to Turkish national security. Assad, however, refused to entertain either offer and, per the Washington Post’s sources, when the Turkish-backed Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) began their late November offensive against Syrian regime forces, many Syrians who had previously remained loyal to Assad dropped their support for his rule, and refused to take action to protect the Assad regime. These Syrians were reportedly angry that Assad had refused opportunities to lessen Syria’s isolation and improve the country’s economy.
Today, in Russia, Putin seeks angering his own people in much the same way.
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Diplomacy with Vladimir Putin
Since his inauguration on 20 January 2025, President Donald Trump has pursued negotiations with Russia and Ukraine to bring Russia’s bloody war of aggression against its western neighbor to an end. As the leader of the most powerful country in the world, Trump is right to want to stop this conflict and end the unnecessary loss of life that Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine has caused. He has spoken directly to Putin, and senior administration officials have engaged in shuttle diplomacy since January 2025, meeting with Russian and Ukrainian officials to try to secure an end to the war in Ukraine.
Although the Ukrainian Government has demonstrated a willingness to make compromises to secure a ceasefire and end the fighting, it is Putin who has continued to make maximalist demands of Kyiv and the U.S. and continued to launch ruthless attacks against Ukraine’s civilian population and infrastructure. By late March, the U.S. President had publicly expressed his growing frustration with Putin’s behavior, indicating that his patience was running out with the Kremlin’s uncompromising approach.
Putin’s response to President Trump’s efforts to broker a peace agreement have not only been unhelpful, but they are seen by many as being insulting to Trump, who is offering significant carrots to the Kremlin, and trying to stop a war that has cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of Russians and Ukrainians, significantly undermined Russia’s economy, and left Moscow more diplomatically isolated than it was before its invasion of Ukraine.
The original Washington Post story was transmitted to readers in Russia on 9 December 2024 in the Russian language online newspaper “RBK”. This was an interesting development, given that the Russian Government carefully controls and censors all media inside the country, and it indicates that the Kremlin may have seen value in letting Russian readers know what happened when Syria’s dictator refused to take advantage of opportunities to end Syria’s economic and diplomatic isolation.
Is it possible that those around Putin were sending him a subtle message that they, like their Syrian counterparts, would not respond well if Putin mishandled any opportunity that the incoming Trump Administration would offer to end their isolation? When U.S. negotiators are meeting with their Russian interlocutors to discuss a ceasefire, someone on the U.S. side is no doubt reminding the Russians that Putin’s refusal to take the steps needed to end the war is resulting in the continued financial hardships that many Russians have had to live with since Putin first decided to invade Ukraine in March 2014, and which increased significantly after he expanded his war against Ukraine in February 2022.
If Putin squanders President Trump’s effort to broker a ceasefire, he risks significantly increasing the internal and external problems facing the Russian State and its citizens. Russian officials who have their leader’s ear should encourage Putin to re-read the Washington Post story and consider the consequences of continuing to refuse to take the necessary steps needed to end the war in Ukraine.
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