Ousted Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad appears to have issued his first statement since the fall of his regime over a week ago, giving new details about his final hours in the country before being evacuated to Russia.

Syria’s iron-fisted leader Bashar al-Assad is the second generation of an autocratic family dynasty that held power for more than five decades and his disappearance amid a lighting rebel advance cap an astonishing reordering of power in a strategically vital Middle Eastern nation.