Syrians roam Assad's palaces, snapping photos and taking mementos

Ukraine's foreign ministry says Syrian president's fall highlights Russia's weakness, inability to fight on two fronts

Syrians strolled through the palaces of President Bashar al-Assad on Sunday following his sudden ouster, wandering from room to room, posing for photographs, and with some taking away items of furniture or ornaments.

Video obtained by Reuters showed people entering the Al-Rawda Presidential Palace, as children ran through the grand, formal rooms and men slid a large trunk across the ornate patterned floor.

Several men marched out of the building carrying chairs over their shoulders. In a storeroom, cupboards had been ransacked and objects strewn across the floor.

Video of another palace, the older-style Muhajreen Palace, verified by Reuters, showed groups of men and women walking across a white marble floor and through sets of tall wooden doors. A man carried a vase in his hand, and a large cabinet stood empty with its doors ajar. Chandeliers hung from the ceiling.

The scenes were reminiscent of the fall of Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime in Iraq two decades ago. Then, Iraqis saw the extravagant luxury of his palaces where the bathrooms were famously fitted with gold taps.

Syrian rebels seized control of Damascus on Sunday, forcing Assad to flee and ending his family's decades of rule after more than 13 years of civil war in a seismic moment for the Middle East.

"The army of Islam (the rebels) is in the presidential palace. God is great, we have seized control of it," said one of the rebels. The group then filmed their walk through the deserted grounds and the stark, monumentalist architecture of the palace.

Ukraine says Assad's fall underscores Russian weakness

The fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad underscores Russia's weakness and inability to fight on two fronts, Ukraine's foreign ministry said on Sunday.

Russia had bolstered Assad's government by staging air strikes against opposition targets beginning in 2015 and had operated out of two bases on Syrian territory. But Moscow's 33-month-old invasion of Ukraine has sapped considerable military resources.

"Events in Syria demonstrate the weakness of Putin's regime, which is incapable of fighting on two fronts and abandons its closest allies for the sake of continued aggression against Ukraine," the foreign ministry said in a statement.

Russia said earlier that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had left office and departed his country after giving orders for a peaceful transfer of power, but did not say where he was now or whether the Russian military planned to stay in Syria.