The Guardian: Assad practicing ophthalmology and learning Russian after fleeing to Moscow

Syria's dictator overthrown Bashar al-Assad after fleeing to Moscow, he returned to ophthalmology and began to study Russian. This was reported by the British newspaper The Guardian with reference to unnamed interlocutors familiar with the matter.

In 2011, a group of teenagers painted a warning on the wall of a school playground: "Your turn, doctor." The graffiti was a barely veiled threat that Assad, an ophthalmologist who had studied in London, would be next in line of Arab dictators toppled by the Arab Spring.

The civil war in Syria lasted 14 years, during which 620,000 people died and almost 14 million were displaced, but in December 2024, it was the doctor's turn, and Assad was overthrown and fled to Moscow in the middle of the night.

According to one of the interlocutors, the ousted Syrian dictator is giving his medical education a chance again. He is now sitting in a classroom taking ophthalmology lessons.

"He is learning Russian and is again improving his knowledge of ophthalmology," said a friend of the Assad family who keeps in touch with them.

"This is his passion, he obviously doesn't need money. Even before the war in Syria started, he was regularly practicing ophthalmology in Damascus," he continued, suggesting that his target audience might be Moscow's wealthy elite.

A year after the overthrow of the Assad regime in Syria, the family lives alone, quietly and luxuriously in Moscow and the United Arab Emirates.

According to two interlocutors, the family is likely to live in Rublevka, a gated residential complex for Moscow's elite. It is also home to former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.

The article says that the Assad family is not short of money. After Western sanctions cut them off from much of the global financial system in 2011 following a bloody crackdown on protests, they invested most of their wealth in Moscow, where Western regulators could not access it.

Despite the comfortable housing, the family is cut off from the elite Syrian and Russian circles it once enjoyed. His last-minute escape from Syria left his family feeling abandoned, and his Russian handlers do not allow him to contact senior regime officials.

"He leads a very quiet life," said a family friend. "He has very little, if any, contact with the outside world," the family friend said.

An interlocutor close to the Kremlin said that Assad is also largely "irrelevant" to the Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and the Russian political elite.

"Putin does not tolerate leaders who lose control of power, and Assad is no longer perceived as an influential figure or even as an interesting guest who can be invited to dinner," the source said.

Russia has apparently banned any public appearances by Assad. In a rare November interview with Iraqi media about Assad's life in Moscow, Russian Ambassador to Iraq Elbrus Kutrashev confirmed that the ousted dictator is banned from any public activities.

"Assad can live here, but he cannot engage in political activity... He has no right to engage in any media or political activity. Have you heard from him? No, because he is not allowed to, but he is alive and safe," Kutrashev said.

• September 25, 2025, Ministry of Justice of Syria issued a warrant to arrest Assad.
• In December 2024, the rebels took Damascus and declared regime change Assad. Bashar, who ruled Syria for 24 years after his father, Hafez, fled the country after 30 years of rule, without warning even the closest environment.