Assad said there were no plans to step down in the days of the opposition offensive

Former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad announced that he was not going to resign, but left the country when "the positions of the army fell". This follows from a statement posted on December 16 in the official Telegram channel of the former president of the Syrian Arab Republic.

"I did not leave my homeland in a planned way, as they try to teach, and I did not leave it in the last hours of the battles. I remained in Damascus, carrying out my duties until the morning of December 8. <...> During those events, neither I nor anyone else raised the issue of asylum or resignation," the statement said.

Assad noted that he moved to Latakia province when opposition forces infiltrated Damascus.

Some time after arriving in the province, he said, it became clear that government army positions had fallen. Then, Assad said, Moscow offered to organize an evacuation to Russia.

"This happened the day after the fall of Damascus, after the fall of the last military positions and, as a consequence, the paralysis of all remaining state institutions," he said.

Syria may be in danger of disintegrating. And that's why

Earlier, on December 8, the Russian Foreign Ministry said that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had resigned as head of state after talks with the opposition and left the country, instructing him to carry out the transfer of power peacefully.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called Assad's departure from the presidency was his personal decision.

On the same day, Syria's national coalition of revolutionary and opposition forces said it was working to form a transitional authority.

The situation in Syria escalated as a result of a major attack by armed formations in Aleppo and Idlib, which began on November 28 and led to the Syrian army's retaliation against the militants.