November 13:
In the wake of the October 31st downing of a Russian airliner, purportedly because of a bomb that was planted by the Islamic State terrorist group, Moscow is mulling stronger transportation security measures. According to Sputnik, at a recent meeting of federal homeland security chiefs, Federal Security Service head Alexander Bortnikov outlined a number of new measures now under consideration to protect Russian aviation. The supplemental measures would include "the engagement of both local forces and Russian experts and equipment to ensure the security of its citizens traveling abroad," Sputnik reports.
Russia's richest are eyeing the exits, reports Bloomberg. According to the business news agency, a new survey of Russian entrepreneurs has found that half of all respondents plan to sell their holdings in the future - a number more than double the international average. Many of those surveyed cite Russia's hostile business framework - in which the Kremlin has arbitrary control over the continued viability of companies - as the main driver of this exodus-in-the-making. "Owners of major enterprises are basically hostages," Alena Ledeneva of University College London explains. "They can suggest their kids as hostages to take their place, but only Putin's system will decide whether to incorporate them or not."
November 15:
Russia is beefing up the Assad regime's defensive capabilities. Citing London's Daily Mail, Israeli trade website Israel Defense reports that the Kremlin has deployed the advanced S-400 air defense system to Syria. While the Russian Foreign Ministry has so far formally denied the deployment, the stationing of S-400s was "accidentally" revealed during a recent visit of journalists to the Latakia Airbase on Syria's western coast.
[EDITORS' NOTE: The deployment is significant, insofar as it suggests that Russia's major objective in Syria isn't counterterrorism but the protection of the Assad regime. The Islamic State, after all, does not currently possess sustained aerial capability, making the S-400 superfluous in the fight against the terrorist group. It does, however, represent an effective deterrent for the Assad regime against the possibility of Western military action against regime forces or their Russian/Iranian reinforcements.]
Russia may now be waging a "war on terror" on the Islamic State and other assorted opponents of the Assad regime in Syria, but its view of terrorism remains highly selective. Reuters cites Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov as telling the Interfax news agency that the Kremlin does not consider Lebanon's Hezbollah militia, one of the world's most capable radical groups, to be a terrorist organization, and in fact maintains contacts and relations with it. Russia's rationale appears to be based at least in part on the group's current political outlook. "They have never committed any terrorist acts on Russian territory," Bogdanov has explained.
November 17:
After much delay, Russia is formally pinning the blame on the Islamic State for the October 31st downing of a civilian airliner over Egypt's Sinai Peninsula. According to USA Today, Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) has announced that a homemade explosive device was the cause of an explosion that crashed a Russian passenger plane in Egypt last month. This finding supports the Islamic State's as-yet-unverified claim that it was behind the crash.
In the aftermath of the November 13th terrorist attacks in Paris, France, Russia's appeal for a global coalition to counter the Islamic State is getting a better hearing in the West. "When Russia first launched its intervention in Syria, Mr Putin spoke of a broad international coalition against terrorism," writes The Economist. "Yet Mr Putin's bombs initially did little to win the West's favour." However, the attacks in France "have revived talk of a grand coalition," with Western nations now "interested, or at the very least, resigned to the idea that dealing with IS may mean working with Russia."
But, notes the newsmagazine, serious obstacles to concrete cooperation still remain. "The two sides have yet to agree on the fate of Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president and an ally of Moscow, whose continued rule the West opposes." Moreover, "[s]eparating an alliance against IS from the situation in Ukraine will also prove tricky" because it is not clear that the tenuous ceasefire there will continue to hold.