Originally Posted by Bladewire

...And the denial continues and the conspiracies are created to avoid the harsh reality that Putin is supporting someone who's more of a ruthless dictator than himself to advance his interest in the Middle East.

Anyone wanting to position themselves in the ME used to have to deal with such dictators until they started getting killed off, one by one. As far as I know Assad is the last living dictator with any real power though Erdogan seems to be a rising dictator.

Putin is holding up Assad because without Assad Putin loses influence in the ME.

Putin is on the wrong side of history and Russians need to get him and his henchmen out of power