More about Assadist struggle to ascertain its own survival with help from Tehran and Moscow:

- From here:
The Syrian delegation included mostly government officials in charge of financial and economic issues in Syria. It seemed that the purpose of the visit was mainly to get additional aid from Moscow. However, Syrian officials issued surprising statements afterward denying that Damascus had asked Moscow for any financial loans or a "line of credit."

The same diplomatic source said that this formal speech in Damascus aims to cover up that the demands of the Syrian economic delegation to Moscow included Russian loans, or a so-called line of credit of about $3 billion. However, the Russian side failed to meet this demand. This Syrian denial then arose merely to cover up the Russian rejection. Such a rejection can be justified because Moscow is dealing with other pressing priorities at the moment, including the Ukraine crisis and the global decline in the prices of energy resources; more important, Moscow must clarify some points with Damascus, not only on the level of economic aid and military logistical support, but also on the political level, in terms of the general behavior of the two allies regarding the ongoing events in Syria.
...
- Nevertheless, from here:

...The report also claimed that Russia and Iran had opened a new credit line to Syria worth 6.4 billion dollars. Tehran has opened a credit line of 4.5 billion dollars and Russia opened a credit line of a billion dollars, in addition to 500 million intended for food and 400 million intended for flour.
With other words: as long as Iran can pay, Russians are happy to continue providing...