For former Syrian dictator Assad and his family, an exile of luxury and impunity

With views from the piso 62, elegant hosts and elaborate cocktails, the “Sixty” restaurant regularly hosts members of the Russian political elite and foreign celebrities.

The Syrian diner, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he was not surprised when waiters asked him not to take photographs.

But he was surprised to discover who one of the VIPs dining with him was: his country’s overthrown dictator, Bashar Assad.

For more than five decades, the Assad surname has been synonymous with brutal autocracy.

Now, the Assads are fugitives and live in Moscow.

Both the deposed president and his brother Maher Assad, one of the regime’s most powerful military leaders, have betrayed little about how they spend their days in the country that supported them when they were in power and welcomed them when they fell.

But based on witnesses and family friends, and digital clues left on hard-to-trace social media accounts, journalists from The New York Times They have discovered glimpses of a life of luxury and impunity.

Details of the Assad family’s life emerged from a Times investigation into the whereabouts of 55 of the regime’s highest-ranking officials.

The people who spoke to the Times — including family friends, relatives and former officials — insisted on anonymity out of fear for their safety.

The Assads’ luxurious exile began from the moment they fled to Moscow in private planes and motorcades, according to a relative, two family friends and two former military officers from the 4th Division, led by Maher Assad.

All of them have spoken, stayed or met with members of the Assad family.

Under the close surveillance of the Russian security services, they were first housed in opulent apartments managed by the hotel Four Seasonswhich can cost up to $13,000 per week.

From there, the deposed president and his family moved to a two-story penthouse in the Federation Tower, the same skyscraper where the Sixty restaurant is located.

Bashar al-Assad was later moved to a villa in the secluded suburb of Rublyovka, west of Moscow, a former Syrian official in contact with the family, another acquaintance and a regional diplomat told Russian officials.

The enclave is popular with the Russian elite and has a luxury shopping complex.

Russian security services continue to monitor Assad and his movements, the former officials and the regional diplomat said, and have ordered the family not to make public statements.

In February, Russian authorities acted quickly, three other former officials said, when Assad’s 24-year-old son Hafez wrote about the family’s escape on social media and shared a video of himself strolling through Moscow.

Since then, he has not posted anything online again.

Two acquaintances said they saw Maher Assad, with a baseball cap pulled down over his eyes, several times in a gleaming skyscraper in Moscow’s financial district, where they believed he lived.

A family friend said he lived in the buildings Capital Towers of that district.

In June, he was seen in a video on social media at the trendy Myata Platinum hookah bar in Afimall, a nearby shopping and entertainment complex.

While in power, Maher Assad and the forces he led were accused of shooting unarmed protesters, imposing “surrender or starve” sieges and running a regional drug trafficking operation that is estimated to have made them billions of dollars.

Judging by the activities of Assad’s daughters, the family has retained a considerable wealth.

In November, the ousted dictator invited friends and Russian officials to a suburban villa for an opulent party to celebrate his daughter Zein’s 22nd birthday, according to a relative, a former regime official and a family friend whose children or close friends attended the party.

Bashar Assad’s cousin and Maher Assad’s daughter, Sham Assadalso appeared to celebrate his 22nd birthday with an extravagant show that took place over two nights in mid-September at a gold-tiled French restaurant called Trifle in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and then on a private yacht.

Both women’s social media accounts are private, with usernames that do not clearly reveal their identities.

However, the Times found and confirmed the authenticity of the accounts through information from family members and friends of the family, and then examined images and videos of public Instagram posts from their friends.

A post from Sham Assad’s birthday showed gold balloons in the shape of 22 surrounded by gifts in bags from luxury brands such as Hermès, Chanel and Dior.

Another photo captures revelers at Bagatelle surrounded by sparkling champagne.

Sham Assad herself is seen waving a Cristal bottle among a cheering crowd.

Another photo tags his cousin Zein’s Instagram, although he does not appear in the image.

The party continued the next day on a yacht adorned with the name “Stealth Yacht” illuminated, with a DJ and flashing strobe lights, according to the posts.

A social media account for a private charter yacht of that name, based in Dubai, also posted photos from the party.

The ship is equipped with fog machines, several bars and a hot tub, and costs several thousand dollars for several hours, plus additional thousands for DJs, bartenders and entertainers, according to marketing materials.

Both daughters have been living in the United Arab Emirates and partying there as well.

According to two family friends and two former military officers who remain in contact with Maher Assad or his entourage, the senior Assads reached a special agreement with Emirati officials that allows their children to remain in the country.

Emirati officials did not respond to questions from the Times.

Just weeks after the fall of the regime, Zein Assad returned to his studies in the United Arab Emirates, at the Abu Dhabi branch of the Sorbonne, a renowned French university, according to family friends and a classmate.

On campus, according to the classmate, she was accompanied by burly and imposing bodyguards.

Not all Syrian students welcomed his return.

In a group chat, a student told Zein Assad that she was “not welcome,” according to two people who claimed to have witnessed the exchange.

Shortly after, they reported, the chat was completely interrupted and the student was no longer seen on campus.

A relative of the student claimed that he had been questioned by Emirati authorities and that he subsequently dropped out of the university, in part because of this incident.

The Abu Dhabi Sorbonne declared the student’s expulsion a “purely academic matter” and cited three violations, including fraud.

The acrimony in the group chat with Zein Assad had “no relation” to the expulsion, the university said.

The classmate said Zein Assad had not attended classes for part of his last term.

But she did obtain her diploma in June at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, where she was also enrolled.

In the graduation photos you could see his brothers and his mother present.

In exile, Bashar Assad and his brother are said to have taken different approaches to their treatment of those who once served them.

Maher Assad has been relatively generous to his closest officers, according to two former commanders and a family friend who contacts him.

Send money to help former allies find housing or start small businesses in their new lives, they said.

But he Bashar Assad’s personal assistant was abandoned in Moscow by his former boss, according to two of the man’s friends and a fellow assistant who said they spoke with the assistant.

The aide, whose duties included carrying the president’s luggage and opening doors for him, was among the few people Assad took on his stealth flight to Moscow in December 2024.

The assistant’s order to join was so sudden, friends and companion said, that he was unable to grab his passport or pack money and clothes.

The aide escorted Assad to the luxurious apartments of the Four Seasons, where he was told to share a separate suite with two of Assad’s other aides.

The next morning, a hotel employee gave them an exorbitant bill, according to their friends and partner.

Panicked, the three advisers repeatedly tried to call Assad.

The deposed president never responded.

Eventually, Russian officials intervened and offered to transfer the aides to a Soviet-era military post along with other lower-ranking regime officials.

Instead, the penniless personal assistant decided to return to Syria.

He now lives quietly with his family in a mountain village, hoping to go unnoticed, said the three people who contacted him.

He declined to speak to the Times when contacted by an intermediary.

A year later, the assistant is struggling and sometimes accepts money from another former regime official to make ends meet.

The Assads, his companion said, never offered him anything.

“Bashar lives his life to the fullest, as if nothing had happened,” the former colleague said.

“He humiliated us when he was here and he screwed us when he left.”