When Vladimir Putin took power in post-Soviet Russia in disarray a quarter of a century ago, he immediately set about restoring Moscow's status as a global power.
It took 15 years, but Russia announced its military intervention in the Syrian civil war as evidence of its return as a force to be reckoned with on the international stage.
Moscow used that image to expand its influence throughout the Middle East and beyond, as a counterweight to the West.
Now the fall of the government of President Bashar al-Assad, a key ally of Moscow, has dealt a serious blow to Russia's great-power ambitions.
DON'T MISS IT
"Putin's military adventure in Syria is designed to show that Russia is a great power and can project its influence abroad," said Phillip Smith, a Middle East expert.
The loss of Syria is a big "slap" for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Assad's ouster is not only a blow to Russia's reputation, but also probably a major strategic failure.
There are two large Russian military installations in Syria: the air base in Hmeimim and the naval base in Tartus. The latter is Russia's only naval base in warm seas and provides Moscow with access to the Mediterranean Sea.
"Russia has used its bases in Syria to project its power into both the eastern Mediterranean and the wider Middle East," Smit said.
Russia's military intervention in Syria in 2015 changed the course of the war. Moscow's devastating air campaigns against rebel positions have helped the Syrian army regain swathes of territory and keep Assad in power.
Moscow's campaign in Syria comes a year after its invasion of Ukraine's Crimean peninsula, as well as its support for separatist forces in eastern Ukraine.
Moscow has capitalized on its involvement in both Syria and Ukraine to sell itself as a power capable of challenging the United States, NATO and the West in general, while expanding its global reach from the Mediterranean to Africa and Latin America.
After Russia's all-out invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Syria has become a bigger asset for Moscow, experts say, while also posing a challenge in how to sustain military campaigns on two fronts.
After the fall of the Assad government, the task became even more daunting.
Russia has already invested heavily in a major counter-offensive to recapture captured territory in its southwestern Kursk region that it lost to Ukraine, to the extent that it is relying on North Korean troops for help. At the same time, it is trying to seize as much territory as possible in the east of Ukraine before possible peace talks.
Russian military installations along the Mediterranean coast in western Syria could be seized by militants led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a US-designated terrorist organization, and its allies.
Aaron Zelin, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute, said Russia simply does not have the firepower available to protect its assets in Syria.
"It's important to remember that Russia now has to deal with their own bigger war in Ukraine compared to when they first went into Syria in 2015," Zelin said.
"Russia also has its own forces fighting in sub-Saharan Africa. And unlike ten years ago, when Russia had the Wagner Group led by (the late Yevgeny) Prigozhin... Russia does not have the same capacity or ability to deal with this now on the same way," added Zelin.
Zelin said that the loss of the naval base in Tartus would be "an extremely big loss for Russia".
"It is the only Russian port on warm seas that it can use for its naval activities and power projection. Losing it would essentially push Russia out of the core of the Middle East," he said.
Moscow did not send ground troops to help Damascus, which fell to HTS and its allies on December 8. Russia has carried out dozens of airstrikes since the militants launched their offensive against Assad's forces in late November, but Moscow's limited intervention has done little to halt the rebel advance.
Russia will pay a heavy price for its failure in Syria, experts say.
Assad's fall is "a major blow to Russia's claim that it is still a global power in terms of maintaining military and political influence abroad," said Hamidreza Azizi, a fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.
From there, actors in other regions such as Latin America and Africa could "start to question their ties and their reliance on Russia," he concluded.
Bonus video:
