*To read Part One, please click here.   On March 28, Russian media presented information that members of the Private Military Company (PMC) Wagner may have been spotted in the East Ghouta region (southwestern Syria), coordinating a “normalization of the post-war situation.” The same sources... MORE

On March 27, the Russian government watered down the Duma bill proposing to legalize Private Military Companies (Chastnye Voennie Company—PMC) (Interfax, March 27). The parliamentary initiative was unanimously rejected by the Ministry of Defense (MoD), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), the Russian National Guard... MORE

The April 14 coordinated missile attack by the United States, the United Kingdom and France, targeting Bashar al-Assad’s chemical weapons facilities, has been met in Moscow with a bout of acute anti-US anger mixed with proclamations of utter Western military failure and ineptitude. The Russian... MORE

On April 12—on the eve of the United States’ and its allies’ airstrikes against Syria in response to the recent chemical attack in Douma—Russian foreign ministry press secretary Maria Zakharova stated that the US, through programs financed by the Pentagon, is creating a network of... MORE

For a week following the April 7 chemical attack in Douma (a suburb or Damascus, Syria), Russia was high-strung with anxiety about the United States’ forthcoming punishment of the Bashar al-Assad regime. Moscow issued every kind of denial that a crime had actually been committed,... MORE

A near-perfect storm has rocked Moscow, starting at the end of last week. On April 6, the United States Department of the Treasury published an additional blacklist of wealthy Russian government officials, oligarchs and business entities that would be sanctioned for differing misdeeds connected to... MORE

Since the emergence in 2013 of the Islamic State of Syria and al-Sham, later Islamic State (IS), followed by its declaration of a caliphate, the British government has estimated that over 850 British citizens and residents travelled to join the group in Iraq and Syria.... MORE

Ahrar al-Sham (Ahrar) is one of the largest rebel groups in Syria. In December 2016, like other groups, it suffered a major blow at the hands of the forces of the al-Assad regime, resulting in the loss of the city of Aleppo. The defeat in... MORE

Since President Vladimir Putin ordered Russia’s Armed Forces to commence operations in Syria, the campaign has provoked controversy and criticism abroad. Criticism ranges from asserting that it would repeat the experience of the Soviet-Afghan conflict (1979–1989) to risking proxy conflicts with other powers, including the... MORE

Since the Syrian civil war erupted nearly seven years ago, perhaps the most dramatic regional diplomatic development has been the steady reemergence of Russia as a major player in the convoluted world of Middle East politics. As a reward for its intervention in Syria, Russia... MORE