Exiled in Moscow’s luxury apartments, Bashar al-Assad is now world’s richest refugee

Syrian opposition forces captured Damascus on Sunday, bringing an end to the country’s 61-year Baath Party rule. As the regime’s stronghold fell, Bashar al-Assad fled the country and went to Russia seeking asylum, but his conditions won’t be like any other refugee, as Assad and his family secured a luxurious life in Moscow long before their exile.

Assad and his family, who were granted asylum by Russian President Vladimir Putin, have numerous assets around the world, with an estimated total worth of around $2 billion. The former Syrian regime leader and his extended family also own at least 20 apartments in Moscow worth more than £30 million.

Assad’s wife Asma and their children Hafez, Karim and Zein—all in their early 20s—reportedly arrived in Moscow days before the deposed leader’s escape.

Bashar al-Assad, City of Capitals

City of Capitals is a mixed-use complex composed of two skyscrapers—once the tallest in Europe—and an office building in Moscow, with a total area of 288,680 square meters (3,107,325 square feet), and it could very well be the new home of the Assad family in exile.

The complex houses some of Russia’s wealthiest figures alongside banks, fashion groups, and even government ministries. Back in 2019, a Financial Times (FT) investigation revealed that Assad and his family owned at least 18 luxury apartments in the City of Capitals.

Assad bought the luxury houses to secure tens of millions of dollars and keep them safe outside of Syria during the ongoing civil war.

Several of Assad’s cousins purchased at least 20 apartments worth $40 million in Moscow between 2013 and 2019, according to the FT.

Today, Assad may have been given asylum by Russia, but his fate certainly does not resemble those of the Syrians who fled the country after war broke out, seeking asylum around the globe.

He will not have any shortage of wealth, having kept his money beyond the reach of Western sanctions and safe in the country where he now lives as a refugee.

No stranger to luxury

Assad had become a name synonymous with wealth and luxury alongside cruelty and autocracy in Syria, long before the civil war.

Assad’s wife Asma, a London-born doctor’s daughter who has been battling an aggressive form of leukemia, in particular, had become accustomed to a life of luxury, with reports that she spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on home furnishings and clothes during her husband’s reign.

In 2012, Wikileaks disclosed Asma’s private correspondence, which showed a spending of $350,000 on the palace’s furnishings and $7,000 on crystal-encrusted shoes.

The U.S. State Department once estimated the family’s net worth at $2 billion, with their wealth hidden across various accounts, shell companies, offshore tax havens and real estate portfolios.

During his regime, Assad resided in the now-abandoned Presidential Palace, known as “The People’s Palace,” in western Damascus. The luxurious compound, consisting of three six-story buildings spanning nearly 29,000 square meters (over 310,000 square feet) and surrounded by manicured gardens, symbolized Assad’s power.

Commissioned by Hafez al-Assad in 1979, the larger palace complex covered an expansive 510,000 square meters (around 5.49 million square feet) of a heavily secured area, including a private hospital and the Republican Guard headquarters.