Putin says Russia isn't weakened by Syria setback

Vladimir Putin gives annual end-of-year news conference

Russian President Vladimir Putin gives his annual end-of-year news conference on Dec. 19, 2024

(Image credit: Contributor / Getty Images)

What happened

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that Russia was winning in Ukraine and wasn't "weakened" by the ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a key ally. Russia was negotiating with all major groups in Syria to retain its key naval and air bases in the country, Putin said in his marathon end-of-year press conference. But Moscow has been seen transferring a lot of its military equipment from Syria to its other Middle East "military foothold" in eastern Libya, The New York Times said.

Who said what

"You want to present everything that is happening in Syria as sort of Russia's defeat — rest assured that is not so," Putin told reporters. But Assad's ouster "undermined Russia's prestige and its ambition to be a major power broker in the Middle East," The Wall Street Journal said, and it "tarnishes Putin's image as a reliable global leader" and bulwark against the West.

What next?

Putin offered to negotiate an end to his war with Ukraine, possibly alongside President-elect Donald Trump. But he also boasted it would be "interesting" to stage "a kind of high-tech duel" pitting Russia's new Oreshnik nuclear-capable ballistic missile against Western air defenses at a predetermined target, "for example in Kyiv." "People are dying, and he thinks it's 'interesting,'" Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on X. "Dumbass."

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.