| Summary/Abstract |
September 30, 2016, marked the first anniversary of Russian President Vladimir Putin's decision to involve his nation militarily in the Syrian conflict on the side of Moscow's longtime ally, the Assad regime. According to initial Russian Defense Ministry statements and Putin himself, the mission had the primary objective of joining the U.S.-led coalition in fighting ISIS. Russia's chief of staff of the Presidential Executive Office at that time, Sergei Ivanov, using an alternative name for ISIS, laid out his country's official objectives on September 30, 2015: “The military goal of the operation is strictly to provide air support for the [Syrian] government forces in their fight against Islamic State.”1 The Mufti of Kazan (the head of Russia's Tatar community) and members of the Russian parliament lined up to support Putin's campaign in Syria, described as a “prophylactic against terrorist organizations” that was necessary to “destroy ISIS at its root.”
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