By Staff, Agencies

Russian President Vladimir Putin made a surprise visit to Syria’s capital, Damascus, meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and observing “signs of peaceful life” in the city.

The two leaders met at the command center of the Russian forces in the Arab country’s capital on Tuesday, just a few hours after Putin’s plane landed in the Damascus International Airport, Syria’s official news agency SANA reported.

According to RT, at the meeting, Putin and Assad listened to reports by military officials on the conditions on the ground in various regions of Syria, which has been receiving assistance from Russia in the form of counter-terrorism airstrikes since September 2015.

Putin told Assad that “signs of peaceful life are visible to the naked eye on the streets of Damascus,” according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

“In his conversation with Assad, Putin noted that we can now say with confidence that a huge distance has been traveled toward restoring Syrian statehood and the country’s territorial integrity,” Peskov further quoted the Russian leader as saying.

The Russian airstrikes have helped Syrian forces clear nearly all of the Arab country from the presence of foreign-backed militants, who began a reign of terror there in 2011.

During his visit, Putin hailed the latest advances made by the Syrian army forces.

The last time Putin visited Syria was in December 2017, when he only briefly stopped at the Russian base of Hmeimim on the Mediterranean coast.