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.

Assad collapsed over the weekend without a fight, Damascus slipped into a power vacuum that saw the pillaging of the deposed president’s ornate palace, some government buildings and the homes of high-ranking officials.

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.

It now searches for a new identity, as its residents wake up to the post-Assad reality and the thousands of scruffy, bearded militants who have — seemingly overnight — sprouted at every major intersection and state institution.