At the Syrian embassy in Russia’s capital, Moscow, a group of men raised the opposition flag a day after the government of Bashar al-Assad fell in Damascus.

“Today the [Syrian] embassy opened and is working normally under a new flag,” an embassy representative told Russia’s state news agency TASS on Monday.

Removed Syrian leader al-Assad fled to Moscow, Russian media reported, hours after a stunning rebel advance seized control of the Middle Eastern country and ended his family’s 53 years of iron rule.

As the regime fell on Sunday, thousands of Syrians poured into the streets echoing with celebratory gunfire and waved the revolutionary flag, in scenes that recalled the early days of the Arab Spring uprising before a brutal crackdown and the rise of an armed rebellion plunged the country into civil war.

Syria’s war, which erupted in 2011 as an uprising against al-Assad’s authoritarian rule, quickly morphed into a full-blown conflict that dragged in foreign powers.

Hundreds of thousands of people were killed while millions were forced from their homes in one of the world’s largest refugee crises.