A broken portrait of Putin and a burned-out hall: BILD photo from Assad's defeated palace
Kyiv • UNN
BILD journalists visited Bashar al-Assad's abandoned palace in Damascus after he fled the country. The luxurious residence was looted, partially burned, and a portrait of Putin was thrown and trampled.
BILD showed photos from Bashar al-Assad's trashed palace from which he ruled Syria for 24 years, reports UNN.
"From this hilltop palace, Bashar al-Assad ruled Syria for 24 years. However, a few days ago, his rule came to an end - unexpectedly, both for everyone and for him," the report said.
Apparently, the dictator had no time to pack, writes BILD reporter Sebastian Prengel, who managed to visit the palace.
"Before the fall of Assad, we were afraid to come here," a young man told BILD before the journalists walked up the palm-lined avenue to the palace. Now tourists stop here and take commemorative photos: "Look, this is where the tyrant lived. This is what's left of it.
"Our footsteps rumble on the marble floor. Next to the conference room is an office with a carved desk made of precious wood. They say it was worth a hundred thousand dollars, but it seems to have been too difficult to take away. In the bedroom - a bed with a mahogany frame, even the mattress is gone. In the bathroom - expensive plumbing, but the taps are torn out, on the floor there is a flag of the regime, trampled by people", - writes the reporter.
Immediately after the fall of the regime, a fire engulfed part of the palace. There, the walls and ceilings are covered in soot, everything is littered with debris. Golden chandeliers, deformed by the heat, hang from the ceilings.
On the street, the journalist found a portrait of Vladimir Putin: "Smashed by his feet and abandoned - he turned out to be of no use to anyone.
Supplement
Syrian rebels, who made significant progress in an offensive last week, on Dec. 8 announced the capture of the capital Damascus and said ruler Bashar al-Assad had fallen. The Syrian president himself has fled the country.
The Syrian Air plane on which Assad fled disappeared from radar. There was a version that the plane could have been shot down and Assad died in a plane crash.
Later, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry's Main Intelligence Directorate said that Russia had used disinformation about the disappearance of the Il-76T plane from radar to cover the evacuation of Bashar al-Assad.
Russian media reports that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and members of his family have arrived in moscow.
