President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and Ahmed al-Sharaa of Syria, arguably the two most anti-Russian leaders in the world, held their first in-person meeting in New York on Wednesday, vowing to support each other in rebuilding following years of Russian-backed attacks.
Sharaa spent most of his political career as a senior figure in the jihadist terror group al-Qaeda and rose to lead Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an al-Qaeda offshoot dedicated to toppling former Syrian dictator Bashar Assad. HTS succeeded after over a decade of civil war in that country in December, forcing Assad to flee the country. Reports indicate that Assad and his family, staunch allies of state sponsor of terrorism Iran, fled to Moscow after HTS reached Damascus.
The Russian government was instrumental to helping Assad keep control of the country following the eruption of civil war in 2011 and remains a close ally to Iran. Following Assad abandoning the country, Sharaa abandoned his jihadi nom de guerre, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, and began wearing Western-style suits, declaring that his Islamist government would be “inclusive” and placing a verbal distance between himself and the Taliban. Through the support of Saudi Arabia, Sharaa obtained a meeting with President Donald Trump in May in which the American president declared himself impressed with the supposedly rehabilitated jihadi, telling reporters, “Great … Young, attractive guy, tough guy, strong past, very strong past– fighter. But he’s got a real shot at pulling it together.”
Sharaa is participating this week in the United Nations General Assembly. He became the first Syrian president to address the General Assembly in over half a century on Wednesday. Sharaa has also been holding meetings on the sidelines with other world leaders seeking to reintegrate Syria into the international community and, above all, attract foreign investment for post-war reconstruction.
His meeting with Zelensky, according to the Ukrainian president, focused on simply restoring bilateral diplomatic ties. Syria under Assad, as a firm Russian ally, had no substantive diplomatic relationship with Ukraine. Kyiv formally cut relations with Syria in 2022 in response to Assad recognizing Ukraine’s Donbass regions, Donetsk and Luhansk, as “republics.” Russian strongman Vladimir Putin would later “annex” the two regions, along with Ukraine’s Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, in September 2022, with full support from Syria.
Zelensky announced on Wednesday that the two leaders signed an official document restoring bilateral ties.
“During our negotiations with President of Syria Ahmed al-Sharaa, we also discussed in detail promising sectors for developing cooperation, security threats faced by both countries, and the importance of countering them,” Zelensky said. “We agreed to build our relations on the basis of mutual respect and trust.”
Syria’s state media network, the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA), also shared photos of the meeting between the two presidents and their delegations, but offered no more details in its coverage.
Like Sharaa, Zelensky has used his presence at the General Assembly to galvanize support for his war-torn nation as the full-scale Russian invasion approaches its fourth anniversary. Unlike Syria, however, Ukraine remains under Russian siege, and Zelensky used his speech at the General Assembly to condemn what he considered insufficient action by the world to make it impossible for Russia to persist in its assault.
“International law doesn’t work fully unless you have powerful friends who are willing to stand up for it. And even that doesn’t work without weapons,” he warned in his speech. “It’s terrible, but without it, things will be even worse. There are no security guarantees except friends, and weapons.”
Zelensky received effusive support from the White House this week as President Trump published a statement on his website, Truth Social, proclaiming faith that Ukraine could defeat the Russian invasion. Trump’s support for Zelensky is notably after a tempestuous year in the relationship between the two presidents that featured Trump expelling Zelensky from the White House for allegedly rude behavior.
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“After getting to know and fully understand the Ukraine/Russia Military and Economic situation and, after seeing the Economic trouble it is causing Russia, I think Ukraine, with the support of the European Union, is in a position to fight and WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form,” Trump wrote on Tuesday.
“Russia has been fighting aimlessly, for three and a half years, a War that should have taken a Real Military Power less than a week to win. This is not distinguishing Russia. In fact, it is very much making them look like ‘a paper tiger,’” he continued.
Sharaa has not aggressively rejected Russia’s attempts to maintain any relationship possible with Damascus. In January, a little over a month after the collapse of the Assad regime, Russia sent a delegation to Damascus led by Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov. Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani visited Moscow in July for a tense, but civil, exchange. Despite HTS’s history of Islamist terrorism, Sharaa has led a government that has largely rejected Russian overtures and focused instead on improving relations with America and its Western allies.
In addition to meeting with Zelensky, Sharaa met in New York this week with President Trump once again. SANA published photos of Trump and First Lady Melania Trump – notably not wearing a hijab, a potential outrage to Sharaa’s hardline supporters at home – with the Syrian leader.
SANA also published photos of Sharaa standing alongside Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, similarly conspicuously unveiled.
In his speech to the General Assembly, Sharaa asked fellow countries for support – particularly with finances – and justified his jihadist organization’s brutality by contending that it was necessary to fight Assad.
“The previous regime used the worst kind of torture against our people — chemical weapons, and bombardment, and torture, and prison, and displacement, and sectarian strife,” he stated. “The former regime killed around a million innocent people and displaced millions, demolished two million homes. Unarmed people were attacked using chemical weapons. Our women and children have inhaled toxic gases.”
“We call now for the complete lifting of sanctions, so that they no longer shackle the Syrian people,” he requested. “Investment laws have been amended, and major regional and international companies have already begun entering the Syrian market, contributing through investment and reconstruction.”
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