War and Peace
Russia’s Maddening Patience Dmitry Orlov May 24, 2018 A lot of commentators noticed a curious fact: during the May 9 parade in the Red Square in Moscow, Putin appeared in the presence of Israeli prime minister Netanyahu. Around that same time, Israeli air force was firing rockets at Syrian and Iranian targets in Syria (lots of which the Syrian air defenses shot down) and the Syrians were firing back at Israeli positions on the Golan Heights (which are occupied Syrian territory, so it didn’t count as an attack on Israel proper). Why didn’t Russia rise to the defense of its ally Syria? Moreover, there was talk of selling Russia’s very powerful S-300 air defense system to Syria, and that offer was subsequently withdrawn. Is this really how an ally behaves? Or take another example: relations between Russia and the Ukraine has been in a downward spiral ever since the 2014 Kiev putsch which overthrew the constitutional government. There is a festering sore of a military standoff in the Donbass region in eastern Ukraine, a constant drumbeat of Ukrainian provocations against Russia, and Russia has been saddled with economic and political sanctions by the US and the EU supposedly in response to the annexation of Crimea and the unsettled conflict in the Donbass that has claimed some ten thousand lives. And yet the Ukraine’s largest trading partner remains… Russia....
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