It is a year since Vladimir Putin sent Russia's air force storming into Syria to salvage Bashar al-Assad's rump state, then in mortal danger of succumbing to Sunni rebels. It is three years since the Russian president’s regional diplomatic coup at the expense of the US: brokering the removal of chemical weapons from Syria after President Barack Obama declined to carry out his threat to attack the Assad regime for using sarin nerve gas against a rebel enclave near Damascus.
Mr Putin – who has upset the post-cold war balance of power in Europe by seizing Crimea and penetrating eastern Ukraine – is seen as a predatory opportunist by his critics but astute and even visionary by his fans. What does his geopolitical balance sheet in the Middle East look like?
