The Guardian – 14 March 2016 – Vladimir Putin’s announcement took many with close links to the military hierarchy by surprise and some observers question if it’s even real.
Five and a half months, 9,000 fighter jet sorties, a reprieve for Bashar al-Assad’s regime, the downing of a Russian passenger jet over Egypt and the end forever of the burgeoning romance between the Turkish and Russian presidents: thus goes the summary of Russia’s intervention in Syria, which has irrevocably changed the contours of the five-year-old conflict and its surrounding geopolitics.