As a court in Damascus handed down a death sentence to Bashar al-Assad this week, the deposed dictator of Syria is unlikely to have been too alarmed.

Assad, who fled his homeland in January 2024 as rebel forces closed in, is reportedly living in an exclusive suburb of Moscow with his family, and passes his time playing video games and brushing up on ophthalmology, a subject he studied at university.

The ex-president, wanted for war crimes committed during the Syrian civil war, has joined a rogue’s gallery of former leaders and political exiles now living under Vladimir Putin’s protection.

Many are thought to have landed in the elite Rublyovka district of Moscow that is the preserve of the rich and famous.

For Assad, the decision to flee Syria was taken out of his hands, but he has experienced the trade-off for those who have sought sanctuary under Putin’s rule.

The former Syrian dictator is reportedly keen to talk about the downfall of his regime, with interviews lined up with television channels. But the Kremlin has banned him from public pronouncements, amid sensitive ongoing discussions with Syria’s new government over Russian military bases in the country.

Russia’s ambassador to Iraq, Elbrus Kutrashev, said last November: “Assad may live here but cannot engage in political activities … He has no right to engage in any media or political activity. Have you heard anything from him? You haven’t, because he is not allowed to.”

Other former leaders have been forced to accept similar restrictions in return for luxury and security in exile.

Package deal

The Kremlin is often willing to come to the aid of allies in a time of need, said Mark Galeotti, an author and historian of Russian politics and history and contributor to The i Paper.

“Part of the package deal for becoming a Russian client is that they will try to keep you in power, but if all else fails, they will offer you a comfortable bolthole,” he said.

Viktor Yanukovych, the former Ukrainian president who fled after the Maidan revolution in 2014, was reportedly a resident in Rublyovka, although he may have since relocated to a resort in the city of Sochi on the Black Sea Coast.

Former Georgian leader Aslan Abashidze fled to the area while facing murder charges in his homeland, and the toppled president of Kyrgyzstan, Askar Akayev, found a refuge there. The wife and family of Slobodan Milošević, a former president of Yugoslavia who died while facing war crimes charges, previously described a happy second life in its forested surroundings.

Disposed leaders tend to arrive in Russia with significant assets. The Assad family has a property portfolio in Moscow with an estimated value of $40m (£29.6m), according to the .

But the Kremlin can be willing to make a loss to support distressed clients, said Galeotti. “The expectation is that when they flee, they will try to flee with the passbooks to their Swiss bank accounts, so that they’re not going to become open-ended and extensive drains on the Russian treasury.”

Moscow doesn’t regard this as a money-earning proposition, he added, because once they have fled, these former dictators and warlords may burn through their assets, and there are certain costs associated with housing them.

Chief among these is dedicated security. Leaders in exile often have not been forgotten by their opponents and victims, who may seek retribution even years later. Ukrainian agents have sought out defectors and have claimed some high-profile scalps, such as former Ukrainian MP , who was gunned down near Moscow in 2023.

A Ukrainian security source told The i Paper that such operations are intended to show “no matter what attempts to escape, one can be found”.

Meanwhile, Russia will be forced to expend more time and resources to find new defectors if “Ukraine is doing its job properly”, they added.

Defectors lower down the food chain can also appeal to Moscow for protection, said Max Hess, a Eurasia analyst at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, citing members of the ousted Ukrainian leader’s party that was banned in 2023.

“I would say that two dozen former MPs from the Party of Regions now live in Russia, maybe more,” he said.

Kremlin assets

Russia offers protection to imperilled allies as part of its international relations strategy, said Hess.

“They want to show they look out for their own,” he said. “If you are a dictator strongman and want to believe the Russians are behind you, seeing that they have stood by other people is important.”

But the Kremlin can impose additional terms. Would-be exiles who are less prominent than world leaders may be required to negotiate bespoke deals, said Galeotti.

“It may well be that people say, ‘I managed to download files before I left’ or, ‘I know where the secret financial pipelines through which we laundered our cash are’, so they have something to bargain with, and Moscow is perfectly prepared to listen to that,” he added.

Analysts point to the value that prominent defectors can offer as intelligence assets to Russia. The Ukrainian security source said it was highly likely that defectors would be tapped for information that could be used against the country.

Former leaders can also provide propaganda services. Yanukovych, the former Ukrainian president, has appeared in videos on Russian state media attacking the European Union and warning against “the West’s attempts to draw Ukraine into Nato”.

Further, defectors are kept on a short leash, with strict limits on their ability to act and speak freely.

The life of a VIP exile in Russia is a “gilded cage,” said Hess. For leaders used to dominant positions with few limits on their powers, a controlled life in obscurity may be among the most painful costs to bear.