Russia sending planes to evacuate citizens from Syria who wish to return home

Russia is sending two planes to Lebanon to evacuate more than 100 of its citizens from Syria, the Emergencies Ministry said, in the clearest sign yet that Moscow may be preparing for President Bashar al-Assad’s possible defeat.

Joint press conference with Syrian President following Russian-Syrian talks. 2010 Photo/Presidential Press and Information Office

“On orders from the leadership of the Russian Federation, the Emergencies Ministry is sending two airplanes to Beirut (on Tuesday) so that all Russians who want can leave Syria,” ministry spokeswoman Irina Rossius said.

“It is planned that more that 100 Russians will leave Syria (on these planes),” she told Interfax news agency.

It was unclear whether the flights were the beginning of a longer evacuation operation.

Moscow is also carrying out what has been called the largest naval exercises since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union in the Mediterranean and Black Sea, including off Syria’s coast, which analysts say are meant to underscore its interest in the region.

Preparing to fly out its citizens is the clearest signal yet that Moscow believes Assad’s fall may be possible, though it has made no indication that it will abandon its position that Assad’s exit must not be a precondition for a peace deal.

The Russian embassy in Damascus statement in “Moscow News” that “the question of the transfer of two subsidiaries of the Russian Emergency Ministry, Russian citizens from Syria through the Beirut airport to Moscow is not at all the evacuation process as reported by the media.”

The embassy confirmed that the entire matter was “down at the will of the citizens who wish to leave Russia, who expressed through constant contacts with consular their will to return to Russia for personal or other reasons.”

Sources in the embassy told “Moscow News”, that the consulate in Aleppo did not close its doors, but suspended its work now, and in all communications with Russian nationals is through the consulate in Damascus.