here in syria in the peopmedium near future. what are you learning on the ground there? how strong is the bashar al assad government, the regime in the ongoing civil war? reporter: it s really gaining strength. it is really interesting to see. i ve been here 20 times many syria and it is consistent over the past couple years that the assad government is gaining strength. you can see how the russians are more and more important to that. i mentioned the enclave outside damascus. that had 400,000 people in it. it is almost empty because the civilians had to leave. it is the russians calling the shots there. if you look at the political process, moscow has made it clear they want to keep bashar al assad in power and keep the military here. so they view this as a long term