A Syrian court has sentenced Bashar al-Assad to death. Moscow says it took him in for purely humanitarian reasons. And to the question of whether it will hand him over - it did not reply.

Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Russia took in the former Syrian president and his family solely because they faced death after the fall of his government. "There was and is no political background to the decision to receive him in our country. The decision was taken exclusively for humanitarian reasons, in the dramatic circumstances of a change of power in Syria, when he and members of his family were being threatened with death," she said.

The question was a different one

The important detail is that Zakharova did not say whether Moscow would hand Assad over to Damascus. That was exactly the question put to her at the briefing - can Russia extradite the former president after the death sentence. The answer addressed the reasons Assad was given refuge in the first place.

That is an old diplomatic craft: you answer a question that was not asked, and formally you have refused nothing. The extradition question remains open at a formal level, even though Moscow has shown no readiness to hand him over to the new Syrian authorities since Assad's arrival.

A death sentence in absentia

The situation changed entirely on 11 August, when the Fourth Criminal Court in Damascus issued the first domestic verdict against the deposed president. Assad was found guilty in absentia of offences including premeditated murder, among them the killing of children, torture, unlawful deprivation of liberty, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

His brother Maher Assad, once one of the most powerful men in the Syrian security apparatus and commander of the Fourth Division, was also sentenced to death. The same sentence went to their relative Atef Najib, former head of political security in Daraa, whose treatment of demonstrators in 2011 was one of the events that set off the uprising and the subsequent civil war. Najib, unlike the Assad brothers, was physically present at the trial.

The Syrian court also ordered the international pursuit of convicts located outside the country. For Bashar al-Assad, enforcement of the sentence practically depends on whether he ever leaves Russia or whether Moscow changes its position on his status.

The decision was taken by Putin personally

Assad's government fell on 8 December 2024, after a lightning offensive by opposition forces that seized the largest cities within days and finally entered Damascus. Assad left the country and arrived in Moscow with his family. Russia confirmed the same day that it had granted them asylum "for humanitarian reasons".

A day later Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov revealed that no lower state structure could have taken such a decision. It was taken personally by Vladimir Putin. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov later offered almost the same explanation Zakharova is repeating now: "Bashar al-Assad is here for humanitarian reasons. He and his family were threatened with physical elimination."

When you shelter a man your new partner wants dead

The whole situation is further complicated by the fact that Russia is simultaneously trying to build relations with the new Syrian authorities - the very ones who overthrew its long-standing ally. Putin has met Ahmed al-Sharaa, while Moscow and Damascus negotiate over trade, over the country's reconstruction and over the future of Russian military facilities in Syria, above all the Hmeimim air base and the naval facility at Tartus.

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa had previously asked Russia to hand Assad over to be tried in Syria. The topic came up during his visit to Moscow in October 2025, when Syrian sources claimed he intended to raise it with Putin in person. After a further meeting between the two in January this year, the Kremlin announced that the extradition question had not been discussed at all.

That puts Moscow in an unusual position: it shelters a man the new Syrian state has sentenced to death, while trying to preserve strategic relations and a military presence with that same state. Two bases on the Mediterranean against one man - and both sides know how that account ends if the pressure becomes great enough.

Zakharova has now clearly explained why Assad was given refuge. But on the most important question after the Damascus verdict - whether Russia will hand over the man Putin personally took under protection - there is still no direct answer. Usually because the answer has not been decided yet, but is waiting to see what it is worth.