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.

Still haunted by video of the mob killing and mutilation of Libyan leader Moammar Qaddafi in that country’s civil war in 2011, the Kremlin moved to save its ally even as it concluded that it could do nothing to prop up Assad’s regime any longer.

A Russian newspaper said the collapse of Assad's regime is "a lamentable, upsetting, agonizing fact that cannot be denied or understated."

Within hours of the attack on the military facility, Russian President Vladimir Putin took the rare step of speaking on national TV to boast about the new, hypersonic missile. He warned the West that its next use could be against Ukraine’s NATO allies who allowed Kyiv to use their longer-range missiles to strike inside Russia.