also declared that any armed resistance against the militants would be considered a rebellion. now on bbc news, unspun world. hello and welcome to the newsroom here at new broadcasting house, the bbc s international headquarters in central london for unspun world the programme where we get the unadorned facts about the world s news from the bbc s global experts. this week, i ll be asking as the fighting in ukraine gets worse and more threatening, what do ordinary russians think about the dangers of a wider war with the west? support is already quite high and, of course, if the war comes to russian towns and cities, then russia ordinary russians definitely will feel that this war is even more justified for moscow. what s life like in syria nowadays the country where russia developed its tactics for bombarding civilians? you can see in the streets that people are digging in the garbage to get some food. that s something unheard of in syria before. and is international
degrees. goodbye for now. now on bbc news, unspun world provides an unvarnished version of the week s major global news stories reliable, honest and essential viewing with the bbc s world affairs editor, john simpson. hello, and welcome to the newsroom here at new broadcasting house, the bbc s international headquarters in central london, for unspun world the programme where we get the unadorned facts about the world s news from the bbc s global experts. this week, i ll be asking as the fighting in ukraine gets worse and more threatening, what do ordinary russians think about the dangers of a wider war with the west? support is already quite high and, of course, if the war comes to russian towns and cities, then russia ordinary russians definitely will feel that this war is even more justified for moscow. what s life like in syria nowadays the country where russia developed its tactics for bombarding civilians? you can see in the streets that people are digging in
but it can t continue like this. it can t continue with one man ruling, one family ruling for ever and ever. one day something should change and i m sure there are plenty of capable syrians who are able to put the country together. and is president assad in control? it s hard to tell because it s not only one power in syria, there are so many powers. there are so many militias ruling. militias some are controlled by him, some are controlled by iranians, others controlled by the russians. you have the kurds in the north, you have the americans, you have the turks. so, he doesn t have control over all syria. in fact, many would argue that syria, as we knew in 2011, as one country, will never be back the same again. it s already de facto divided. you re syrian. damascene. damascus. do you think it ll ever get back ten years, 20 years, 30 years?
but now that drained and the economy collapsed and it showed that there s nothing left in the country. people lying under the poverty line is like reaching 90% of the population, and that s the population who stayed in syria and weren t displaced or were forced to leave the country. you can see in the streets that people are digging in the garbage to get some food. that s something unheard of in syria before a country that s been rich with food and agriculture and fruits and vegetables that people could afford to live, that s not the case. in terms of the overall picture of syria and what s happened there, the russians have helped syria, the syrian government, to defeat any attempt to overthrow it. in fact, john, that s the mood among the leadership in damascus, you know, bashar al assad and his followers, is that we won. we deserve everything that we can control. but he won over a wreckage
of a country and what they re doing now, because there isn t much money left in the country and they want that, theyjust are extracting any penny that anyone can have. even loyalists to assad in the last year left, many industrialists closed business and moved to egypt. it s more and more draining in the country and leaving the poor, the helpless, even poorer and more helpless. now you go to syria quite a lot. what s your impression about the support that the assad regime actually has? you get the sense that everyone is so angry. even among the loyalists, especially because they feel they fought this war for him, they stood by him all these years and they ve got nothing. at the end, it s only a small elite of people who are the warlords who got the benefits and were paid back for standing with assad. is there any alternative to assad at the moment? one of the issues that makes people