Assad to flee Syria with Moscow having become convinced that he would lose against the insurgents rapidly advancing on Damascus, sources have said. Moscow offered Mr Assad a safe exit if he left the country immediately as the rebel forces led by former al-Qaeda offshoot Hayat Tahir al-Sham (HTS) approached,

Defence Studies Centre senior fellow Matthew Sussex says the demise of the Assad regime in Syria represents a “significant blow” to Moscow and Vladimir Putin.

Jawlani has moved to form a transitional government, get the buses running and turn the power back on.

Rapturous celebrations in the streets of the capital were tempered by trepidation over whether the city’s new rebel caretakers could deliver a better future.

The Kremlin on Wednesday played down the damage to Russian influence in the Middle East from the fall of Syrian ally Bashar al-Assad, saying that its focus was on Ukraine and that Moscow was in contact with Syria's new rulers.

The Kremlin confirmed on Dec. 11 that longtime Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad had fled to Moscow after rebels took the capital city of Damascus in a lightning offensive that shocked the world. Assad’s exile in Russia comes as little surprise.

Assad's regime in Syria will likely deprive Russia of its only overseas naval base and other military assets, into which the Kremlin may have invested hundreds of billions of rubles over the past nine years,