Order Michael Finch’s new book, A Time to Stand: HERE. Prof. Jason Hill calls it “an aesthetic and political tour de force.”
Wasn’t it F. Scott Fitzgerald who said that there are no second acts in America? But Bashar Assad is not American, and he seems to be doing quite well in his own second act, as a pampered exile in Moscow. He’s learning Russian, for obvious reasons. He’s brushing up on ophthalmology — before becoming the mass-murdering ruler of Syria, he’d been an ophthalmologist in London and Damascus, and apparently would like to return to that profession. Out of love, you understand. He doesn’t need the money; he has billions stashed away that he stole from the Syrian treasury, and with it bought Moscow luxury apartments and filled his Russian bank accounts.. His physically fetching, morally repellent wife has undergone an experimental treatment in a Russian that has apparently cured her leukemia. His daughter Zein has just graduated from MGIMO, an elite university for the sons and daughters of the Russian elite, with a degree in international relations. Perhaps she’s hoping to someday return to take a “leadership role” in a mini-state based in Latakia for Alawites.
By all reports, his family remains aloof from the Russians among whom they are now forced to live. His children have made great strides in their new language, but Bashar is reportedly having trouble with the intricacies of speaking and reading po russki.
More on the “second act” of Bashar al-Assad can be found here: “Exiled to Moscow, Assad is making a quiet return to ophthalmology for the elite – report,” by Esther Davis, Jerusalem Post, December 19, 2025
Bashar al-Assad, the former Syrian dictator who relinquished his rule in November 2024 and fled to Moscow, is now living in Russian luxury and “brushing up on ophthalmology,” the Guardian reported on Monday, citing sources close to the family.
A friend of the Assad family told the Guardian that “he is studying Russian and brushing up on his ophthalmology again. It’s a passion of his; he obviously doesn’t need the money,” suggesting his target clientele would be Moscow’s wealthy elite.
According to the Guardian, a year on from the fall of the Assad Regime in Syria, the family is living a quiet and isolated life of luxury in Moscow and the UAE. They are thought to live in Rublyovka, a gated community of the Russian elite, where former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, who fled Kyiv in 2014, is believed to live.
Assad was deposed after 14 years of civil war in Syria that killed over 600,000 people and displaced nearly 14 million. Despite granting Assad political asylum, Putin has little respect for the ex-dictator. A source close to the Kremlin told the Guardian that Assad was largely “irrelevant” to Putin and the Russian political elite.
What remains a puzzlement is why Putin continues to shelter Assad, whom he is said to despise. Why doesn’t he turn Assad over to the new regime in Syria, to deal with as it wishes? And in addition, he could even seize the real estate holdings in Russia that Assad owns, as well as his accounts in Russian banks. After taking a large tranche of Assad’s assets for himself, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, Emperor of All the Russias, could turn the rest over to Ahmed al-Sharaa at the same time that Assad himself is delivered by Aeroflot to Damascus. Putin would thereby win points with Ahmed al-Sharaa, that should ensure that Russia will retain its naval base at Tartus and its airbase at Khmeimim, which are essential if Russia is to project its power into the eastern Mediterranean.
