"Brave" Assad defected to Putin, where will Putin flee to?

This year's Human Rights Day was marked by heartbreaking photos of Syrian prisons and torture chambers, which were opened after Assad's escape. People were humiliated there for years. Men and women. They were beaten, tortured, raped. Thousands of people went through this factory of violence.

For decades, the Assad regime has relied only on violence. This is true of all the regimes supported by Putin. We have seen such prisons, torture chambers, unspeakable violence, humiliation, beatings, torture, rape and other crimes in every place occupied by Russian invaders.

Russia is a prison state, and it can only hold on to lands that were taken from it by others by setting up prisons and torture chambers there.

Since the beginning of the Russian occupation, repression and torture have followed the tanks. We first witnessed this phenomenon on Crimean soil in 2014, when the Russian occupation led to the repression of the local population, Crimean Tatars, the largest Murin community in Ukraine, as well as journalists and politicians. Subsequently, Russia continued to commit horrific human rights violations in the occupied Donbas region, including the notorious Izolyatsia prison.

Since February 2022, Russia has expanded these practices to the remaining occupied territories. The atrocities have increased in scope and brutality.

That is why we in Ukrainians feel so moved when we see Syrians emerging from Assad’s prisons and torture chambers.

Assad and Putin are more than just vassal and lord. They are accomplices in violence. A dictator like Assad cannot do without a dictator like Putin. And Putin will try to avenge Assad’s downfall.

That is why we need unity and strength to confront regimes that bring only humiliation and leave only suffering, pain and ruin. By helping Ukraine confront Putin’s dictatorship, the international community is helping many other regions regain security and freedom from violence.

Terrorist atrocities and human rights violations must be brought to justice. In fact, it is Putin and Assad who should be in jail, not the innocent people they have been imprisoning for years.