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Press TV has conducted an interview with Gordon Duff, editor of Veterans Today from Ohio, about Syrian forces raising the national flag of Syria in the strategic town of Yabroud after retaking full control of the town from foreign-backed militants.

- Gordon Duff, at the rate the Syrian army is going it appears that obviously the opposition is going to retreat and the gains are going to get to a point where the opposition perhaps is going to lose this war.

Where do you see this going in terms of the Assad government versus the backers of these ... [militants] on the ground? What are the backers going to do now?

- You know this has turned into a far more regional conflict than anyone expected. The Jihadists that were brought in by the Saudis and others, the thousands of them are going to begin [fleeing] home and actually be that the terrorist elements people long expected them to be.

One of the big surprises of the war has been Hezbollah. Hezbollah had performed very well in the 2006 conflict against Israel and right now Hezbollah is turning into a trained qualified army and to that extent it is a far more disciplined, it is a far more politically functional and more politically acceptable group.

We have created a very strong relationship here across Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah stretching into Russia and what would be half of the Ukraine. This is the regional expectation here which was supposed to be, turn into destabilization and really fascism and Jihadism is heading the other direction.

This is a very surprising turn against many and it is going to have a serious effect when we finally get down to constructive talks about what happens to the Palestinians who are now being oppressed in Israel.

- We are looking at Lakhdar Brahimi who has traveled to Iran to talk to officials here. At the same time the fallout from the crisis in Ukraine, perhaps if you can tell us Gordon Duff would have led to Russia arming Assad more and therefore ultimately translate to win the situation on the ground to come sooner than later with the upcoming presidential elections in Syria. Do you foresee then Assad has won the game?

- Assad has very much won. There is no reason for Putin to want to play along with the United States and EU whatsoever after the horrific things that have been done in Ukraine.

We expect the Ukrainian people to increasingly side with Russia, more of Ukraine. Ukraine is, one of the things we talked about a couple of weeks ago, Ukraine is going to be divided. Half of Ukraine is going to turn into a radical Jihadists state, be a fascist Jihadist state, very anti-Russian. It is going to be very destabilizing.

Toward that end the Cold War is coming back. Toward that end Hezbollah and Syria are going to be very much aligned with Russia. They are going to get higher quality armaments. There is going to be a more survivable situation not only for Assad but there is going to be a change in the balance of power throughout the region as Russia begins to take much of the stand that they had during the Cold War, oddly enough a stand that has the support of the majority of the American people.