Or against which of those factions will russians lose blood treasure and "bandweight"? Rather than make russian greater, make syria great? For a warm port? LoL. The core problem is overpopulation exponentially growing backed by the jihad ideologies in all the area...
Secondly the narrative that the west would have used syria as a spring board to attack russia is a little irrealistic. How to control them? They merge emerge and split faster than altchains:).
At least it's more or less flat...
a good arm mercheant will say all of them! And a good debt merchant will add but more for the victor as long as he guarantee the debt of the loser:).
The battles for the roads to makkah, a classic. How long will the russians stay is the only real question... the others are there to stay (and die).
Question: who are the russians officials who have the most to lose in this sunny and hot endeavor? They have to be watched carefully... they could be tempted to double (and more) down with the years going.
Palmwars, one of the oldest sport... it's played over generations over the sand...