In September 2013, Russia began an effort to broker a deal in which Assad would surrender his regime’s chemical weapons stockpile.
///Russia proposed
the deal after U.S. President Barack Obama announced that Washington was
considering launching a military strike against the Assad regime, which had
reportedly used chemical weapons against Syrian civilians. This effort was an
attempt by Moscow to accomplish what it failed to do in Libya—prevent the
armed intervention of Western actors in the conflict and keep the regime of
its ally intact.