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Melissa Harris-Perry: This is The Takeaway. I'm Melissa Harris-Perry. At the end of February, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, spoke by phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Russian invasion of Ukraine had just begun and at the same that many Western nations were condemning Russia's attacks, Assad delivered his unequivocal support. Reportedly he told Putin that the invasion was "A correction of history and restoration of balance, which was lost in the world after the breakup of the Soviet Union."

Despite being roughly 2,000 miles apart, Syria and Russia have closely aligned for decades.

Borzou Daragahi: Since the surge of Arab nationalism in the 50s and 60s, Syria has belonged to the more Arab nationalist and what was back then an anti-Western quasi-socialist camp.

Melissa Harris-Perry: That's Borzou Daragahi who's International Corresponded for The Independent.

Borzou Daragahi: Under the family of Hafez al-Assad and his son Bashar al-Assad, those ties between Russia and previously the Soviet Union and Syria have only strengthened. They became especially stronger in recent years since the Syrian uprising and the entrance of Russia as a very active player in the Levant, especially in Syria, backing the regime of Bashar al-Assad against popular uprising that later turned into armed insurrection.

Reporter 1: Cockpit video from Russian bombers over Syria today, pinpoint strikes against terrorists, claim the Russians. As ever in war, such claims should be treated with extreme caution.

Reporter 2: In the Russian airstrikes over Syria, a new round tonight. The new image is coming in a second straight day now. Tonight the US and Russia now holding talks on Syria. Russia initially claiming they were targeting ISIS, but tonight major questions about Russia's true targets.

Melissa Harris-Perry: At the time, leaders like then-president Barack Obama were skeptical that Russia could help Bashar al-Assad hold onto power.

Barack Obama: Iran and Assad make up Mr. Putin's coalition at the moment, the rest of the world makes up ours.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Borzou told me how Russian intervention reversed the course of the Syrian civil war.

Borzou Daragahi: There was a time when Bashar al-Assad regime looked to be in big trouble that was around 2015. Syrian rebels were looking to be closing in on the heartland of Bashar Assad's Alawite community in the Northwest of Syria in Tartus and that region Latakia. At that point, the Russians, as well as the Iranians, intervened. It was Russian air power that sent the rebels back and ultimately gave Bashar Assad what appears to be a victory over those rebels who are now hold up in Idlib province and not many other places around the country.

Melissa Harris-Perry: According to the non-profit watchdog group, Air Wars, Russian airstrikes are responsible for the death of as many as 23,000 Syrian civilians. For Syrians watching from afar, the parallels in Russia's violent invasion of Ukraine are unsettling. Borzou Daragahi recently traveled to the opposition-held Idlib province to learn more about how Syrians are processing Russia's attacks on Ukraine.

Borzou Daragahi: I think it was on the lips of everybody, every person that you spoke to had an opinion about it, everyone was watching it on their phones and on their TVs. It was something that everyone was interested in. Everyone was willing to talk about it. Everyone was very, very sympathetic to what was happening to the Ukrainians. Very much their heart went out to them. As a matter of fact, one rebel fighter I was speaking to, was on the front lines between the Russian-backed regime forces and the rebel forces.

He basically blurted out, "We love you Ukrainians. The Ukrainians they fight like beasts. They're amazing. We admire them." Another theme that many people were were striking was that a victory for the Ukrainians would help the Syrians in that it would weaken Russia and thereby weaken the Syrian regime, perhaps force the Syrian regime to take negotiations with the opposition more seriously.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Help me understand what are the sources of information? What are Syrians seeing that might be similar or different from what Americans are seeing and also what Russians are seeing.

Borzou Daragahi: What they're seeing is scenes of utter devastation and destruction of Ukrainian cities like Mariupol and Kharkiv, that very much resemble the ruins of Syrian cities, such as Aleppo and Homs‎, and the suburbs of Damascus such as Douma and Ghouta. These are scenes that are very reminiscent. They see fleeing people, refugees running for their lives with a few possessions in their hands, heading to a border with their kids in tow, their tired traumatized kids in tow. They see these images and it very much evokes their own experiences.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Part of what we've heard from critics of both the global response, as well as response of media, is that there has been a capacity for an empathetic open welcoming response towards the Ukrainians that perhaps was not always there relative to Syrians. I'm wondering if Syrians reflect that way [unintelligible 00:05:42], it's simply this sense of connected and shared suffering.

Borzou Daragahi: I didn't hear a lot of that kind of bitterness. We have to keep in mind these are the Syrians who decided to stay put and stay in their country. I didn't hear a lot of bitterness saying, "Oh, they welcomed the Ukrainians, they didn't welcome us." I could see why some people would suggest that. On the other hand, I also have traveled to Hungary and Romania, and Moldova, and I spoke to people there, people helping the refugees and I asked this question to them as well.

They said, "Look, I don't know about Viktor Orbán or right-wing populist, but I'm doing the same thing for the Ukrainians that I was doing for the Syrians and the Iraqis who were coming in 2015. I think the question is more complicated. I will also say that we are still very early in the Ukrainian struggle and the Ukrainian war. In the first few months of this Syrian uprising, there was also a lot of global sympathy. That was before the pro-Kremlin trolls got to work spreading anti-refugee propaganda against the Syrians and against the Syrian refugees, and basically using the refugees as a political weapon.

Let me caution that could happen again with Ukrainians, and they're already the same nodes of disinformation that we're smearing the Syrians as head-choppers and terrorists, and Al-Qaeda and so on, are now smearing the Ukrainians as Neo-Nazis and so on. We're just a few weeks into this. Let's see what happens in a year when people are tired, economies are strained, resources are fewer, and let's see if the welcome will be as enthusiastic as it is now.

Melissa Harris-Perry: How present is the Russian military in Syria at this time?

Borzou Daragahi: They have a massive naval base in Tartus, which has been a dream of Russia to have a major naval presence in the Mediterranean. There's also an airbase in Aleppo, and there's another airbase in Northern Syria as well. They also likely have assets in and around Damascus. Mostly it's air assets. There's very few in terms of Russian ground forces in Syria, neither private contractors nor regular Russian arm forces.

Over the last two years, there's been very limited bombing of Idlib province. Although I should caution that there was few airstrikes just this Monday in Idlib. There has been very limited warfare in Syria over the last couple years in this part of Syria, at least. There have been reports of massive airlifts of equipment from Syria towards the Ukrainian theater of operations.

Melissa Harris-Perry: I've been talking about these parallels, these shared experiences as though they are simply tragic and inevitable, but do you have any sense that if Russia had faced greater repercussions globally, for its attack on civilians in Syria, that Putin might have been less emboldening to invade Ukraine?

Borzou Daragahi: I think it goes back even to 2008 and the incursion into Georgia, which is where a lot of this started. A lot of the same kinds of disinformation, creation of an alternative reality. In Georgia, when I was there covering that war, there would be claims by the Kremlin that there were no Russian tanks in Georgia. Meanwhile, I would have video footage. Myself with my own eyes I saw tanks with the Russian flag on them in Georgia.

Despite that, they would say, "No, what you're seeing is not what you're seeing." They pushed and yet it continued. Putin was welcomed into the Western fold and he continued to sell oil and gas to Western countries. Then 2014 happened where he attacked Ukraine. There was some sanctions and so on, there was some condemnation, but in the end, Russia didn't pay a huge cost for that.

Following year was the year he entered the Syrian conflict very boldly, and there was very little pushback from that. I think that, yes, he could have very much gotten the impression that, you know what, these Westerners are a pushover. All they care about is money and they're just corrupt. If we just keep making business deals with them, they'll be fine. They'll make a few condemnations at the UN. Snicker snicker, we'll just keep doing what we're doing. I think there was that calculation. You can see that in some of the rhetoric of both Vladimir Putin and pro-Kremlin TV pundits that I monitor through translations and so on.

Melissa Harris-Perry: I know that you spoke with the director of the Idlib Museum about Russia's attacks on the cultural centers in Syria, something we've been seeing as well in Ukraine. My understanding is he actually had a message for Ukrainians. Can you share that with us?

Borzou Daragahi: He was the head of the Idlib Museum, which is this rare gem that I had been to Idlib before, and I never even known about this museum. On the day I was there, it was rather cute. There was kids in there, there was a classroom of children who were looking at it and filled with Roman era and Byzantine era, cultural and archeological artifacts. I was talking to him and he was basically warning the Ukrainians that you better hide the treasures that you have at your museums and cultural sites because cultural sites are not off-limits. This site has been hit. I had managed to hide much of the stuff in other places. I was not worried about many of the treasures that were in the museum, but the museum itself and its garden is filled with big statues that were not moveable. Those were very badly damaged in various bombings that never directly hit the museum but came extremely close. He had a big warning for them about Ukraine's cultural heritage and how it should be protected, and that it's not going to be spared.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Was there anything else you heard while reporting in Idlib, that you found to be particularly resonant for the people of Ukraine?

Borzou Daragahi: One of the most sublime warnings and messages that I heard from a Syrian, was this young female journalist that I interviewed. I asked her about what message she would have for the Ukrainians. She had a stark warning. Idlib is now controlled by Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham which is a coalition of armed groups which is formed and primarily by the successor to Al-Qaeda in Syria.

Her warning was that the style of Russian war makes you become a criminal and you have to become like your enemy in order to win. This is not good because war is not good for the civil society activist. It is not good for the poet. It is not good for the teacher. It is not good for the ordinary civilian. War empowers the killers. She said she was worried that the same kind of dynamic would take hold in Ukraine, where the war would just bring to the top, the most vicious and most violent and most fearsome groups, rather than those that were the cornerstone for Ukraine's democratic transition.

That the very goals that Ukraine was about when they went into Maidan in 2014 and had this revolution for democracy and freedom and liberty, those very goals could be sacrificed as the country gets on a war footing and becomes its enemy in order to win.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Borzou Daragahi is an international correspondent for The Independent. Thank you for joining us.

Borzou Daragahi: It's been a pleasure.

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