I recall Aslan Abashidze of Georgia's Ajaria region and Ukraine's Yanukovich also taking refuge in Russia, similar to Assad's family. Historically, even some Kurdish opposition figures during the Soviet era sought shelter there. It would be fascinating to track their subsequent whereabouts.

as clear as a day

It cannot be last time by default, because viruses reformulate all the time and include elements of the DNS from the different hosts. Hence virtually endless opportunities. Most, however, are dead ends and only some spell out a real trouble to people. So it has been and so it will be.