President Vladimir V. Putin said on Thursday that Russia was still considering whether to keep its military bases in Syria and claimed that most Middle Eastern countries and ruling factions in Syria wanted Russia to stay.
“I don’t know — we’ll need to think about it,” Mr. Putin said at a news conference, referring to whether Russia would keep those bases. “We’ll need to decide for ourselves how our relationships will look with those political forces that now control and will control the situation in the country in the future. Our interests need to coincide.”
Commenting about Syria for the first time since the rule of Russia’s close ally Bashar al-Assad collapsed there on Dec. 8, Mr. Putin tried to cast the stunning turn of events as something other than a defeat for Russia and to portray Russia as being in control of its own fate.
Analysts say that, in fact, Russia’s standing as a world power is likely to suffer as a result of Mr. al-Assad’s fall, especially if it loses its Tartus naval base and Hmeimim air base in Syria. Both have been key to Russia’s ability to project its influence across Africa and the Mediterranean.
Moscow intervened in Syria’s civil war in 2015, beginning several years of fierce airstrikes that helped Mr. al-Assad stay in power.
But after the start of the surprise rebel offensive last month, Iranian and pro-Iranian fighters backing Mr. al-Assad on the ground chose not to resist the rebel advance, Mr. Putin said. Instead, they asked for Russia’s assistance in evacuating from Syria, he said.
Mr. Putin, responding to a question from NBC News at his year-end news conference, said he had not yet met with Mr. al-Assad, who had fled Syria for Moscow, but that he was planning to. Mr. Putin said he would ask Mr. al-Assad about the whereabouts of Austin Tice, the American journalist abducted in Damascus, Syria, in 2012.
“I will definitely speak with him,” Mr. Putin said, referring to Mr. al-Assad. And referring to Mr. Tice, he added: “I promise that I’ll ask this question.”
Mr. Putin also said that he hadn’t spoken to President-elect Donald J. Trump in “more than four years,” but that he was open to talking to him.
“I’m ready for this, any time,” Mr. Putin said. “And I’ll be ready to meet, if he wants this.”
Mr. Putin’s marathon annual news conference has become an annual ritual for the Russian ruler, who first took power in 1999. In recent years, it has been combined with another annual Kremlin rite, the “direct line,” in which Mr. Putin answers calls or letters from across the country, often from people complaining about their local authorities.
The broadcasts, sometimes lasting longer than four hours, are meant to show Mr. Putin’s close engagement with world affairs as well as with the worries of regular Russians. It is also, analysts say, meant to contrast him with Western leaders, whom Russia’s state media often portrays as weak and out of touch.
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