The official story is that Russia is in Syria in order to fight ISIS and other jihadis… *not* that they’re there in order to get them selves a strategic foothold in the region by way of supporting Assad so he’ll give ’em a port. But then there’s this:

Videos suggest Russian government may be arming Taliban

Hmmm.

Some might suggest that this is irony,or turnabout s fair play. The US armed the proto-Taliban against the Soviets, after all. But in the 80’s, the great threat was the Soviet Union, not global jihadi terrorism. Now that the Russian government claims that jihadis are enough of a threat that they’re willing to carpet bomb cities full of civilians, they are *apparently* arming the very same jihadis.