"Of course we understood then and we understand now that it is not easy to reach an ideal situation in Syria. The compliance with the ceasefire, unfortunately, is being violated," Valentina Matvienko said.
Matvienko, chairperson of the Council of the Federation, vowed alongside Tehran and Ankara to continue "to do everything" to achieve compliance with the ceasefire the sides reached in recent months.
"This is the most important condition for a peaceful political process, for the successful conduct of negotiations in the Geneva and Astana formats," she stressed.
Russia is protecting Syria from outside interference and not its president as a person, Valentina Matvienko told Sputnik.
"We are not protecting Bashar Assad as a person, this is not our goal. We stand for strict observance of international law, the UN Charter, which clearly declares the inadmissibility of outside interference in the affairs of other states," Matvienko said.
Drawing on examples of post-intervention Iraq and Libya, she relayed a question that Russia asks its partners in negotiations in the event of Assad's ouster: "What next?"
"Next is chaos, a protracted bloody civil war, because as long as there are no political agreements, it is not clear what format the change of power will assume," Matvienko said.
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