MOSCOW – Russia is finally acknowledging that President Bashar Al-Assad's rule may be nearing its end, indicating that the Kremlin is preparing for a Syria without the dynastic regime that has been a Moscow ally for over four decades. The Kremlin is still needling the West by refusing to call on Assad to step down but its newly frank assessment of his survival chances appear to have given cautious hope to a frantic bout of year-end diplomacy. “Russia is not blind and Russian diplomats are not idiots. They see that the tendency is moving in one direction,” said Fyodor Lukyanov, chairman of the Moscow-based Council on Foreign and Defence Policy. “It's already known to all what the final outcome will be, it is just not clear when this will happen,” he said. In a rare visit by a top regime official abroad, Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Muqdad travelled to Moscow this week for closed-door talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. – Agencies
