Russia's President Putin meets Syria's Assad in Moscow for the first time since 2015 and criticized foreign forces that are in Syria without a U.N. mandate, the Kremlin said.
MIKHAIL KLIMENTYEV / AFP - Getty ImagesMOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin received Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad in Moscow for the first time since 2015 on Monday and criticized foreign forces that are in Syria without a U.N. mandate, the Kremlin said, in a rebuke of the United States and Turkey.
However, significant parts of Syria remain out of state control, with Turkish forces deployed in much of the north and northwest — the last major bastion of anti-Assad rebels — and U.S. forces in the Kurdish-controlled east and northeast. "Terrorists sustained very serious damage, and the Syrian government, headed by you, controls 90 percent of the territories," Putin said, according to a Kremlin statement.