The background- How did Russian agents remove Bashar al-Assad from Syria?

As his soldiers withdrew and put on civilian clothing, al-Assad's fate was in the hands of Russian agents. Vladimir Putin decided to save his ally when he concluded he could do nothing more to support Assad's regime, Bloomberg reported today, citing Kremlin sources.

At a critical moment, Russia managed to convince Assad that he would lose the fight against armed groups led by the former al-Qaeda delegation (HTS) and offered him and his family safe passage if he left Syria immediately.

Russian intelligence then orchestrated an escape and released Assad through their air base in Syria. According to an inner source of the Kremlin, the aircraft transporter had been shut down to avoid tracking.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and Putin has also not yet commented on the collapse of the Assad regime.

Sources for Bloomberg also discover that Russian officials were surprised by the speed of turning the situation into Syria, though they are trying to give the impression of coldness.

They also fear for the future of their two main military bases in Syria ʹ the seaport of Tartus and the airport in Kmetim.

Russia initially bombed opposition forces in an attempt to crush them, but after the Syrian army offered little resistance as the rebels invaded the town of Hama several days after the capture of Aleppos, Kremlin concluded that it could not protect the regime when the rebels attacked the strategic town of Homs, one of the sources for Bloomberg said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov held talks on the Syrian crisis with his Iranian and Turkish counterparts in Doha the day before Assad left. Iran, like Russia, has been a close ally of Assad, and the two countries came to his defense in 2015 when Putin sent Russian troops to Syria to help Assad oust the rebels surrounding Damascus.