Russian President Vladimir Putin recently confirmed that the time frame of the Russian military operation in Syria would be limited by the Syrian army’s offensive.

Konstantin Kalachev, head of Moscow’s Political Experts Group, says that “’a second Afghanistan’ is possible if Russian forces are used in ground operations,” something no officials are yet talking about but that will be necessary because airpower alone will not break ISIS whatever anyone thinks.

Moreover, he continues, “it is obvious that the Islamic State is not struggling so much with the Asad regime as with various Sunni groups.” A Russian military presence can serve as “a restraining factor” but a real military presence would be something else: it would convert “the pluses” of the situation into “minuses” almost instantly

“We cannot take on extra responsibilities and have never taken any. I have said from the very beginning that the active phase of our job in Syria will be limited to the time frame of the Syrian army’s offensive,” Putin said.

Here’s Putin just a week ago telling “60 Minutes” that he doesn’t anticipate using Russian ground troops in Syria. Good thing those volunteers are around to fight the battle for him instead. Note also what he says about how it’s better to fight jihadis who threaten Russia in Syria instead of waiting for them to show up in Moscow. That may sound familiar; the same argument, colloquially knows as the “flypaper theory,” was offered by U.S. hawks in defense of the Iraq war. Whether Putin’s borrowing that argument because he finds it useful or just to tweak his American critics, who knows. Re-read the second excerpt above, though, and ask yourself how much sense it makes — especially given that Russia’s targets in Syria so far aren’t the hardcore expansionist jihadis like ISIS but other Sunni groups.

The American bases in Iraq and those of Russia in Syria “in fact fulfill the role of so call ‘interventionists;’ that is, they demonstrate a presence and provide military-technical help, but ISIS will not be defeated by these groupings. NATO understands this and has no desire to conduct such operations,” Kuznetsov says.

“If then such a [ground] operation will not take place then the only thing we can count on is the stabilization of the Alawite portion of Syria and in the end the cutting out of a Sunni state on the territories of Iraq and Syria.” To achieve more would take enormous numbers of ground forces and involve enormous losses, he continues.

The Russians have been coming for a long time. In fact, they have been there for more than three years. While September 2015 marks the first time that Russian military armour has been operated by Russian troops, its officers have been on the ground since 2012, helping transfer thousands of tonnes of weapons to the Syrian army and direct the air war against the opposition. Iran has been much busier, with large numbers of senior officers giving tactical and strategic direction to beleaguered Syrian forces, marshalling Shia militiamen, who have been flown in from the Iranian city of Qom, and working alongside Hezbollah, who have shouldered the load of the fighting west of Damascus and on the northern outskirts of Aleppo. Now western states are once again actively debating the wisdom of more robust intervention.

Despite occasional rhetoric, there remains no appetite in Washington, London, Ankara or Paris for a western intervention to topple Assad amid the chaos. The United States in particular remains very wary about being drawn back into a region that it had vowed to leave less than four years ago and, in the face of repeated failings, is sticking to its model of trying to act in support of states such as Iraq, rather than leading the fight on its behalf.

US jets have been flying in Syrian skies to bomb Isis for more than a year. Turkey has sent its own jets in the past month, but they have primarily targeted the Kurds, instead of the jihadis. Isis is, for now, the quarry, and this is unlikely to change unless there is substantial progress on the diplomatic front. Only then would the appetite for military muscle – in support of diplomatic aims – possibly increase.

The Kremlin has acknowledged that military specialists are in Syria to train local troops in how to use Russian weapons, and a Russian battalion is believed to be there to protect the airbase in Latakia. But President Vladimir Putin has said he will not deploy ground troops to Syria.

However, reports have alleged that Russians who had previously fought in eastern Ukraine have been spotted among Syrian government forces.

Fighting as a mercenary is illegal under Russian law, but Komoyedov’s statement to Interfax has prompted speculation that the Kremlin could encourage irregular forces to fight in Syria, much as it reportedly did in eastern Ukraine. More than 40 Syrian insurgent groups have vowed to attack Russian forces in retaliation for Moscow’s air campaign, in a show of unity among the usually fragmented rebels against what they called the “occupiers” of Syria.

The 41 Syrian rebel groups, which included powerful factions such as Ahrar al-Sham, Islam Army and the Levant Front, said Russia had joined the war in Syria after President Bashar al-Assad’s forces were on the verge “of a crushing defeat”.

The insurgents’ warning came as the chairman of Russia’s parliamentary defense committee suggested that Russian “volunteer” units could join with forces fighting for Assad. Some analysts have drawn comparisons to the Soviet war in Afghanistan. But the Soviet Union had cash to spare when it sent its army into Afghanistan in 1979. Oil prices were high, and plentiful export revenues from crude could be funneled into the conflict.

Russia’s intervention in Syria comes at the opposite end of the cycle. The price of oil is at its lowest in more than a decade, and the country is in a fiscal crisis.

The move also comes amid a wider increase in Russian deployments abroad. Moscow is expanding its bases in Syria, the Arctic and former Soviet republics, particularly in Central Asia, where it warns of a rising threat of terrorism spilling over from Afghanistan.

The Kremlin has said the money for the Syria campaign is coming out of the existing defense budget — one of the few departments to escape sweeping cuts this year — but the real source of funding is opaque, said Pyotr Topychkanov, an analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Center, a think tank.

It is a paradox, he said: Russia has mimicked U.S.-style publicity for its Syrian offensive, blitzing the press with glossy images and film of missile launches and bomb strikes and posting daily updates on Facebook and Twitter in multiple languages. But on the money issue, officials have been silent.

Russian President Vladimir Putin recently confirmed that the time frame of the Russian military operation in Syria would be limited by the Syrian army’s offensive.

“We cannot take on extra responsibilities and have never taken any. I have said from the very beginning that the active phase of our job in Syria will be limited to the time frame of the Syrian army’s offensive,” Putin said.

The threat of terrorism exists in many states but Islamic countries and Russia can be the victims in the first place, Vladimir Putin said.

“Terrorist threat looms over many countries in the region… it is us, the countries of the region, the Islamic countries, are the first victims of terrorism, and we want, and are willing to fight them,” the president said. Winston Churchill’s famous description of Russia as “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma” still holds true today. But most people forget the possible solution to this vexing problem that Churchill proposed: “… but perhaps there is a key. The key is Russian national interest.”

In view of some western strategists,the official state seal of the Russian Federation features a double-headed eagle. One head faces east while the other faces west, indicating Russia is a country with a split identity, both European and Asian. This ancient symbol is also an apt descriptor of recent Russian actions in Ukraine and Syria. After decades decrying U.S. military modernization and intervention overseas, Russian President Vladimir Putin is embarking duplicitously on his own modernization efforts during multiple foreign interventions.