Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa met Wednesday with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin in Moscow and promoted closer ties between the two countries. It was the first meeting between them since Sharaa rose to power late last year.

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Moscow was a major backer of Bashar al-Assad, the former president of Syria who was ousted in December after a major offensive led by Sharaa’s militant group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). Russian forces had helped Assad defend against opposition groups during the bloody Syrian civil war, but the war in Ukraine constrained Moscow’s ability to resist HTS and other rebels in the far-flung Mideast country.

Sharaa told Putin that he would honor past agreements with Moscow, which has two major military bases in Syria whose status became unclear after the collapse of Assad’s regime. “We are trying to restore and redefine in a new way the nature of these relations so there is independence for Syria, sovereign Syria, and also its territorial unity and integrity and its security stability,” Sharaa said before the meeting. Putin expressed an eagerness for the two countries to work together on “many interesting and useful beginnings.”

Sharaa was expected to request, behind closed doors, that Putin’s government hand over Assad, who took refuge in Moscow last December after militants seized Damascus, the capital. He was also expected to ask for Russian support in rearming Syria and resisting Israeli demands for an expanded demilitarized zone in the country’s southern region. After Assad fell, Israel sent troops to southern Syria and has launched air attacks in the country, including a strike on the defense ministry in Damascus.