Russia’s deployment of military muscle in Syria shows the powerful alliances that President Bashar al-Assad can still count on. But it cannot hide the weakness of the Syrian regime. Mr Assad has survived nearly five years of rebellion against his rule that sparked a catastrophic civil war, killed nearly about 300,000 people and left him only about a quarter of Syrian territory. He was battered but appeared resilient. Over the summer, however, his position weakened dramatically. Pro-government forces lost an entire north-west province to rebels seeking to oust him. Further east, jihadi militants of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (known as Isis) seized the historic city of Palmyra, creeping up on a major highway to Syria’s populated centre and threatening gasfields that allow the regime to provide electricity and maintain basic services. For the regime, keeping the power on is essential to its continued legitimacy. “There hadn’t been any real victories on the ground. The best the regime can claim in recent months is not losing,” said Rami Abdelrahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a pro-opposition monitoring group.