Putin plans to meet Bashar al-Assad, says Russia not defeated in Syria 

President Vladimir Putin says Russia has not been defeated in Syria after rebel groups ousted his ally and longtime leader, Bashar al-Assad, earlier this month.

In his first public comments on the subject on Thursday, Putin said he had not yet met the former Syrian ruler who fled to the Russian capital, but that he “will definitely talk to him” and planned to meet him in Moscow.

He mentioned he would ask al-Assad about the fate of missing United States reporter Austin Tice, whose release was described by the White House as a “top priority”.

Speaking at his annual end-of-the-year news conference, Putin also dismissed claims that Russia, which intervened in Syria in 2015 and turned the tide of the civil war there in al-Assad’s favour, had suffered a loss with the fall of the former regime.

“You want to present what is happening in Syria as a defeat for Russia,” Putin said. “I assure you it is not … we have achieved our goals.”

He said Russia intervened in Syria to “prevent a terrorist enclave from being created there” and that “it is not for nothing that today many European countries and the United States want to establish relations with them [Syria’s new rulers]”.

“We maintain relations with all the groups that control the situation there, with all the countries in the region,” Putin continued, adding that the “overwhelming majority of them tell us that they would be interested in our military bases remaining in Syria”.

Russia offered to maintain bases there “for humanitarian purposes”, he said. He also admitted to having evacuated 4,000 Iranian fighters in the aftermath of the fall of the al-Assad government.

On the topic of the ongoing war in Ukraine, Putin said he was ready to discuss the possibility of reaching a compromise in talks with US President-elect Donald Trump.

He expressed his readiness to meet Trump at “any time”.

“I don’t know when I’m going to see him. He isn’t saying anything about it. I haven’t talked to him in more than four years. I am ready for it, of course. Any time,” he said.

Putin also touted what he said was the invincibility of the “Oreshnik” hypersonic missile which Russia has already test-fired at a Ukrainian military factory, saying he was ready to organise another launch at Ukraine and see if Western air defence systems could shoot it down.

“Let them determine some target for destruction, say in Kyiv, concentrate all their air defence and missile defence forces there, and we will strike there with Oreshnik and see what happens,” he said.

“We are ready for such an experiment, but is the other side ready?”