Byline Times is an independent, reader-funded investigative newspaper, outside of the system of the established press, reporting on ‘what the papers don’t say’ – without fear or favour. To support its work, subscribe to the monthly Byline Times print edition, packed with exclusive investigations, news, and analysis. The brutal dictator Bashir Assad has fallen and taken refuge in Russia. The Soviet Union and then Russia has long been an ally of Assad and, before him, his brutal father Hafez Assad.