President Putin held a late-evening meeting March. 14 with Foreign Minister Lavrov and Defense Minister Shoigu where they agreed that the original goals of the anti-terrorist intervention in Syria had been fulfilled, mainly in supporting the Syrian Arab Army in liberating most of the country’s population and crippling Daesh.
After the announced withdrawal Moscow’s priorities will now shift to monitoring the ceasefire regime and focusing on a diplomatic solution to the war on Syria. To Russia’s fair credit, this unexpected move revealed that the earlier information smears against it in supposedly being bogged down in a ‘new Afghanistan’ or wanting to ‘occupy Syria’ were complete propaganda.
Igor Pellicciari, Professor at the LUISS University (Rome) – studio guest; Ali Rizk, independent Middle East expert (Beirut); and Max Suckov, columnist at the Al-Monitor, commented on the issue.