Vladimir Putin says Russia is confident that Syrian President Bashar Assad never resorted to the use of chemical weapons in his country

ST. PETERSBURG, June 2. /TASS/. Russia is defending not so much Syria’s leader Bashar Assad as Syrian statehood, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday. "We’re defending there [in Syria] not so much President Assad as Syrian statehood," the Russian president said at a panel discussion at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.

"We don’t want a situation to emerge on the territory of Syria comparable with Libya or Somalia or with Afghanistan where there is the need for presence for many years while the situation is not changing for the better," Putin stressed. Russia wants the preservation of the Syrian statehood to use this as the basis for moving towards the political settlement of the Syrian problem, the Russian leader said. In response to a question about whether Assad could be considered as an evil man, Putin suggested that this question should be addressed to other leaders who had communicated with the Syrian president. "He [Assad] visited Europe more frequently than Russia after he was elected," the Russian leader said, explaining his suggestion. "Did Assad make mistakes? Yes, possibly, and quite a few of them," Putin said. "But the people who oppose him, are they angels or what? I mean, those who kill people, execute children and cut heads off?" He warned against "labelling" and called for concrete work to pool countries’ efforts in addressing the problem of terrorism. Putin pointed out that the charges Assad had used chemical weapons were groundless. Moreover, nobody cared to support Russia’s proposal to inspect the places where ostensible chemical weapons were taken on board aircraft or the suspected places of attack.