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.

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.

Moscow achieved its goals in Syria, Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed during his annual press conference and a call-in program on Dec. 19. following the collapse of dictator Bashar al-Assad's regime. Commenting on the fall of Assad's regime for the first time, Putin said Russia invaded Syria to prevent the creation of "a terrorist enclave."

Bashar al-Assad was branded the "rat of Damascus" after fleeing to Moscow as his brutal regime collapsed. Foreign Secretary David Lammy slammed Assad as a “monster” as the horrors of his prisons, where thousands of political inmates were locked up, tortured, and killed, were emerging.

The sudden collapse of the long-established Assad family dictatorship in Syria changes the balance and constellation of competing forces in the Middle East. For many years, the Syrian government has been a client of Russia, and before that the Soviet Union. Turkey has also intervened, mainly in pursuit of the Kurd minority regarded as dangerous.

Losing Syrian military bases would hurt the Kremlin’s attempts to project power in the Middle East and Africa.

Vladimir Putin has been conspicuously silent about Syria since the end of Bashir Assad's rule. Analysts say it points to weakness and a need for a win.

The Russian president, in a marathon annual news conference, said that he had not yet met with Bashar al-Assad, the ousted Syrian leader who fled to Moscow, but that he planned to.