Assad makes first public statement after Syria ouster. What happens next for him and his wealth?

Toppled Syrian leader Bashar Assad has released what appeared to be his first public statement since his regime was ousted by rebel forces and he fled with his family to Russia more than a week ago.

Assad claimed in the statement Monday that he had no intention of fleeing Syria for Russia and that he wanted to keep fighting rebel forces. But he yielded to a request by Russia to evacuate after a military base where he was hiding ? usually used by Russia ? came under a drone attack. Assad made the claim in a post on the Syrian presidency's Telegram channel.

"At no point during these events did I consider stepping down or seeking refugee," he said in the post, although it was not clear who controls the account or whether he wrote it himself. Assad said he went to the Russian base in Latakia province to "oversee combat operations." When he got there, Syrian troops were fleeing the area.

Assad was in power for 24 years. Before that, his father, Hafez Assad, was president for nearly three decades. The Assad family ruled Syria with an iron grip, locking up those who dared to question their rule. The country is now largely under the control of an insurgent group named Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS.

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Russia gave the Assads asylum. Their sudden departure has raised many questions about what's ahead for Syria, the millions who fled because of Assad, the family's wealth, its corrupt state and what the family might do in Russia.

How wealthy is the Assad family?

The U.S. State Department estimates that the Assad family has a net worth of up to $2 billion spread out and concealed in numerous accounts, real estate portfolios, corporations and offshore tax havens.

How much of this wealth they will be able to access from Russia is not clear.

The Financial Times has reported that as Syria's civil war raged, the family purchased more than a dozen luxury apartments in Moscow's so-called City of Capitals complex, a shimmering skyscraper district. The British newspaper reported this week that the family flew $250 million to Russia over two years.

Ayman Abdel Nour, a former friend of Syria's leader from their college days studying medicine in Damascus and the editor-in-chief of All4Syria, a leading independent news outlet, said Assad used a series of chartered flights to move money and valuables to Russia in the days leading up to his departure for Moscow.

"He has money hidden in many names," Nour said. "This is why he took his financier ? Yasser Ibrahim ? with him to Moscow. Because he's the one who knows all the codes and passwords for all the banks."

Syria is the world's largest supplier of Captagon, a synthetic stimulant that is a popular drug in the Middle East. Analysts estimate the Assad regime netted billions each year from its trade.

Who is Bashar Assad's wife, Asma?

Asma Asad, 49, was born in London as Asma Fawaz Akhras.

Her father was a cardiologist and her mother a diplomat at the Syrian Embassy. She met her future husband initially while on a family vacation in Syria and then got to know him better while he was studying ophthalmology in England.

In the beginning, there were frequent comparisons to Princess Diana. Asma Fawaz Akhras was glamorous, young, chic. Smart, too. She studied computer science at college, then excelled in the cut and thrust world of London investment banking. After marrying a president and becoming an Assad, the by all accounts dazzling Syrian first lady vowed to use her analytical and business skills to change the image of Syria, inside and out.

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Asma Assad wanted more entrepreneurs, more civic-minded citizens, more progressiveness. She was involved in myriad projects ranging from so-called information discovery centers for children to a cultural heritage mission.

"It’s about everyone taking shared responsibility in moving this country forward, about empowerment in a civil society. We all have a stake in this country; it will be what we make it," she told Vogue magazine in a now widely discredited feature article published in 2011 with the headline "A Rose in the Desert."

Vogue removed the article from its website because of the backlash it created. This backlash was for publishing a story that ignored atrocities the Syrian government was committing against its own citizens, including using chemical weapons against children, yet found space for the "long-limbed beauty's" preference for "red soles" ? a reference to her high heels, designed by Christian Louboutin and at the time worth about $700.

Thirteen years later, after the Assads fled for Moscow as their regime was toppled by rebel forces, the dictator's wife left Syria with a reputation that may be closer to that of Marie Antoinette, the French queen who became a symbol of excess and helped provoke the popular unrest that led to the French Revolution.

A decade ago The Guardian newspaper published purported private email correspondence between the Assads that showed Syria's first lady was spending lavishly on luxury items while her husband was dropping thousands of barrel bombs from helicopters and using chlorine, sarin and mustard gas against Syrians. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of Assad opponents were sent to prisons where they were tortured or executed.

Among Asma Assad's purchases: chandeliers, candlesticks and crystal-encrusted shoes worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Journalists who reported from the Assad's abandoned home in Damascus discovered countless boxes for jewelry, antiques and designer goods. Her husband had a garage full of luxury cars.

In 2018, Asma Assad was diagnosed with breast cancer. This year she also announced that she has leukemia. The couple have three children, all presumed to be in Russia with them, who are all young adults. Assad's son, Hafez Jr., recently defended his doctoral dissertation in mathematics at Moscow State University.

What will the Assads do in Russia?

The Russian Foreign Ministry granted the Assad family asylum on "humanitarian grounds." Notably, it did not give them political asylum, which tends to be a longer-lasting form of protection.

Nesrin Alrefaai, a Syrian visiting fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science, said this could be a move designed to give Russia more wiggle room to change its mind about the Assads.

"Russia cares about Russia at the end of the day," she said. "It was strategic to give them humanitarian asylum over the political one just in case they need to back down under pressure. I know that Syrians at the minute are trying to gather evidence to take him to the Hague," she said, referring to the international war crimes court in The Netherlands. "Lawyers at the minute are trying to gather evidence, freeze his assets, and bring him to a trial."

The British government said it has not had contact from Asma Assad about a request to return to the U.K.

Alrefaai said that she suspects Assad is in a "state of shock" about his ousting and that it happened so quickly after a lightning-quick offensive by anti-Assad forces across the country. "I don't think it was his original intention to leave Syria. He was counting on Russia's support to keep him in power. It was all very sudden," she said.

Even if he wanted to, Alrefaai said, it would be difficult for Assad or his younger brother, Maher, a senior Syrian government military commander accused of killings, torture, extortion and drug trafficking who disappeared when the rest of the family fled to Moscow, to mount a challenge to HTS to retake Syria without strong backing from Russia and Iran-backed Hezbollah militants. Maher Assad is believed to have made it to Russia, via Iraq.

"I don't think his loyalists supporters have enough power to go against the rest of Syria," Alrefaai said.

Syria: The priorities

Majd Jadaan has long been connected to the Assads. She wishes she weren't. Her sister, Manal, is married to Maher Assad, Bashar's brother. The couple are separated but not formally divorced. Jadaan said her family was always opposed to the marriage, but then her father died and the younger Assad turned her sister against her family.

As the feud with Syria's most powerful family grew, she was forced into exile.

Jadaan, who has lived in the U.S. for more than a decade, said her sister and children are now safe in a third country in the Middle East, where she will soon reunite with them after 14 years.

For security reasons, she didn't want the country's name published.

Now an American citizen, Jadaan said she intends to return to Syria's capital, Damascus, within weeks.

"I will be working to unite the Syrian people," she said. "We will be trying our best to rebuild Syria.

"What a lot of people don't know is that the Syrian people are a great people. We've always been positive and creative. We leave a stamp wherever we've lived," she added, noting that Germany has expressed concern over what could eventually be an exodus of Syrian doctors who fled there during the country's 14-year civil war and Turkey appears anxious about Syrians who could take their small businesses and factories back home.

"Syrian people are survivors. This is what I can tell you. They're strong. We will get over all the obstacles."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Syria after the Assads: What's next for dictator and his family wealth