The roots of Russia’s bold intervention in Syria — which began in earnest on Wednesday with airstrikes against opponents of President Bashar al-Assad’s government near the city of Homs — extend to the beginning of the Arab Spring in early 2011, when Vladimir Putin served as prime minister nominally under his protégé and hand-picked successor, Dmitri Medvedev. Many in Russia and beyond had placed in Medvedev their hopes for a steady, if slow, political transition away from Putin’s authoritarian instincts during his two terms as president.
Putin seemed even to have retreated from the day-to-day business of the state, especially in …read more
Source: European Voice
