France and Germany’s top diplomats will travel to Syria on Friday, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot announced, and meet with the leader of rebel group HTS. The trip to Damascus marks the first time in years that the foreign ministers of Europe’s two largest powers pay a visit to Syria, coming a month after a successful Islamist rebel offensive ousted longtime dictator Bashar Assad. “In Syria, we want to promote a peaceful and demanding transition in the service of the Syrians and of regional stability,” Barrot wrote in a post on X.  His German counterpart, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, wrote in a post that their visit “on behalf of the EU” is to help Syria make a new start in an inclusive, peaceful transition of power, as well as reconstruction of the war-ravaged country. “We are all aware that this will be a rocky road,” Baerbock said. The two ministers will meet with the country’s de facto leader, Ahmed Hussein al-Shar’a (also known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Golani), who heads the main rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS. Although the United States and United Kingdom list the group as a terrorist organization, Western powers are likely to cooperate with it to stabilize Syria and stem the flow of Syrian migrants. Barrot and Baerbock also intend to visit the notorious Sednaya prison north of Damascus.  According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, 30,000 detainees were killed in the Sednaya prison by Assad’s regime since the Syrian civil war started in 2011.  European leaders welcomed Assad’s dramatic fall in early December as a “positive development” for Syria, vowing to work with the new leadership.

Russian President Vladimir Putin personally decided to grant asylum to Syrian dictator Bashar Assad and his family, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters Monday. “Such decisions certainly cannot be made without the head of state. It was his decision,” Peskov said, while declining to officially comment on Assad’s whereabouts. Peskov said he had nothing further to add. Assad fled to Moscow as Syrian opposition forces took control of the capital, Russian state media reported Sunday, adding that he was granted asylum by Russia on humanitarian grounds. Assad’s Iran- and Russia-allied regime, which has ruled Syria with an iron grip for almost 25 years, brutally curtailed human rights, deploying chemical weapons against civilians within the civil war that has raged in the country since 2011. Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s ambassador to international organizations in Vienna, confirmed the news in a post on X. “Breaking news! Bashar al-Assad and his family in Moscow. Russia does not betray friends in difficult situations,” Ulyanov said. European leaders welcomed the collapse of the regime that stands accused of presiding over the indiscriminate destruction of civilian areas, the arbitrary detention of innocent people and widespread use of torture inside the regime’s notorious prisons.

The dramatic victory of rebel groups in the Syrian civil war is a defeat for Russia and Iran, the European Union’s top diplomat declared, as government forces abandoned their posts and militant groups flooded into the capital. The end of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s dictatorship is “a positive and long-awaited development. It also shows the weakness of Assad’s backers, Russia and Iran,” EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas said in a statement Sunday. “Our priority is to ensure security in the region,” she said. “The process of rebuilding Syria will be long and complicated and all parties must be ready to engage constructively.” Meanwhile, British Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner welcomed the apparent collapse of the ruling faction in an interview on Sky News. “What we need to see is a political resolution in line with the U.N. resolutions,” she added. “We need to see civilians and infrastructure protected. Far too many people have lost their lives, we need stability in that region,” In the early hours of Sunday morning, Syrian rebels pushed into the capital, Damascus, declaring victory in a brutal civil war that has lasted over a decade and claimed the lives of more than half a million people. The Sunni militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham used a televised statement to say the city had been “liberated, [and] the tyrant Bashar al-Assad has been toppled.” Multiple reports claim the longtime Syrian president, who took power from his father in 2000, has fled the country. People have taken to the streets in Damascus and other major cities to celebrate the end of his regime, while rebels have opened the gates of Assad’s prisons, freeing thousands of detainees — many behind bars for years without a fair trial. The news came hours after rebels took the key stronghold of Homs as government forces abandoned their positions. The move effectively cuts off the port of Tartus from the rest of the country, isolating the Russian naval and air bases on the coast. Moscow had for years been actively supporting Assad’s regime, striking rebel-held towns and cities as the civilian casualty count steadily rose. Syria exploded into outright civil war in 2011 as the Arab Spring swept the region, and later saw ISIS fighters take large swathes of territory before being defeated by a coalition of local and international groups. Assad’s government stands accused of presiding over the indiscriminate destruction of civilian areas, the use of chemical weapons in contravention of international law, the arbitrary detention of innocent people and widespread use of torture inside the regime’s notorious prisons.