The transfer marks the end of an era when Russia played an arguably oversized role in determining which countries could operate in Syria’s contested airspace.

Two African states are frustrating Moscow's efforts to establish a stronger military presence in the continent following the fall of Assad.

HMEIMIM AIR BASE, Syria — The Sukhoi fighter aircraft punched through the clouds, its growl echoing over Russia’s Hmeimim air base on Syria’s coast. Abu Zaid, a bearded militant with the Syrian rebel group Hayat Tahrir al Sham, cocked his ear toward the roar.

The rapid downfall of Syrian leader Bashar Assad has touched off a new round of delicate geopolitical maneuvering between Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

During Vladimir Putin’s year-end press conference on Thursday, NBC journalist Keir Simmons asked him about Russia’s role in Syria. Putin dismissed any suggestion of Russian failure, asserting that Moscow had achieved its objectives there and that the groups opposing Bashar al-Assad’s regime had “undergone internal changes.

The Syrian regime’s collapse came more quickly than the rebels had dreamed — the circumstances were both serendipitous and part of a larger global realignment.

In his first comments on Assad’s downfall, Putin said that he hadn’t yet met the former Syrian ruler, whom he has given asylum in Moscow, but plans to.

A lengthy convoy of Russian military vehicles rolled down the highway heading towards the Syrian city of Tartous on Monday as soldiers stood guard. Planes periodically descended and rose from Russia’s Hmeimim air base in the Syrian coastal province of Latakia while smoke rose from inside the base.

Russian President Vladimir Putin denied on Thursday that Russia's nine-year intervention in Syria had been a failure, but expressed concern about Israel's military operations there since the toppling of his ally Bashar al-Assad.

The loss of its military power in Syria has led Russia to turn its sights on Libya. Could the fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria see the strengthening of his Libyan counterpart, Khalifa Haftar?