Putin has supported his ally. The world is complicated. In recent years, the US State Department and CIA has been the behind the scenes puppeteer toppling governments it just didn’t like and replacing them with obedient fools, like Zelensky. In Ukraine, this US puppeteering has cost the lives of nearly 1 million Ukrainians who had no chance to win from the beginning.
The US is the country that really needs a “slap in the face” to get it to stop meddling and to do the work of defending its own border, getting its own financial house in order, restore respect for law and order, and stop pissing on the people who are productive and giving a free ride to bureaucrats and welfare types who don’t do a single productive thing.
Russia was in Syria to have a base in the Med, outside the Black Sea access controlled by Turkey.
Russia was in Syria to insure the gas pipeline across Syria to Europe was never completed.
Russia has now lost all reason for being in Syria