Uganda’s Idi Amin shocked the world with atrocities, then fled with his wives to a quiet middle-class life. The Philippines’ Ferdinand Marcos lived in luxury in Hawaii.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad arrived in Russia on Sunday after rebels seized control of Damascus, Russian state media said—a pivotal moment in the years-long civil war against the regime that has controlled Syria since the 1970s.

The Russian president intervened decisively in the Syrian civil war in 2015, propping up the Assad regime, after then US president Barack Obama shied away from taking tough action against it for crossing a “red line” with the use of chemical weapons on rebel-held areas of the country.