In Moscow, obscurity and irrelevance await Assads

He was whisked away without a last message to his people; the aircraft's transponder deliberately switched off to avoid detection as it departed from an airbase in Syria.

- Guardian international staff

The operation was carried out with such secrecy that even the dictator's brother reportedly was not informed.

A decade earlier, it was Russian military power that saved Bashar al-Assad's rule by intervening on his side during what appeared to be a losing civil war he violently attempted to suppress. Now, as rebel troops closed in on Damascus, Moscow provided Assad with a personal escape route.

According to Bloomberg, Assad required some persuading from Russia to leave the country, with Russian intelligence agents orchestrating his escape to Moscow.

Assad's travel options were always going to be limited. As a pariah on the global stage, his two major allies, Russia and Iran, were the obvious places for refuge. By choosing Moscow, observers suggest, Assad opted for a familiar place that aligned with his lavish habits, while also selecting a refuge with relative stability.

"Bashar and his family are avowedly secular, even though they identify with the Alawite sect, so Russia always had more appeal than Iran in that sense," said David Lesch, a Syria expert at Trinity University in Texas who has met with Assad on multiple occasions.

Russia, whose leader, Vladimir Putin, is under an arrest warrant from the international criminal court, is also less likely to face pressure or incentives to hand Assad over to those seeking to prosecute him.

"In Assad's mind, Russia and Vladimir Putin can better protect his family from extradition or any other attempts by the international community to bring him to justice," Lesch said.