Ukraine’s top diplomat meets Syrian leaders as Kyiv seeks improved ties

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha was in Damascus on Monday where he held talks with members of the new Syrian administration, the Foreign Ministry’s press service has reported.

Sybiha met the country’s new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, Prime Minister Mohamed al-Bashir and the Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan al-Sheibani.

“I am here to give the Syrian people a personal message from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky: we are with you. We are ready to help the Syrian people, because Ukraine is interested in a stable Syria and the development of mutually beneficial relations,” Sybiha said.

Zelensky said on 23 December that Kyiv was interested in stabilising the situation in Syria and intended to provide food aid to Damascus. “We believe that it is essential for the security of the people of Syria and the entire region to remove any Russian presence from Syria,” Zelensky wrote on Telegram.

Deposed dictator Bashar al-Assad arrived in Moscow earlier this month having been granted asylum after the Russian Foreign Ministry announced that he had voluntarily made the decision to resign and leave Syria, leaving officials in Damascus orders to undertake the peaceful transfer of power to the rebel groups who had taken control of the Syrian capital.

Ruslan Sulemaynov, an expert on the region, told Novaya Europe that Moscow had lost an ally it had provided with weaponry and spent enormous sums of money on, all ultimately for nothing, adding that the fall of the regime was a “huge blow” for Putin.