Unpunished supply of weaponry to ISIS and occupation of neighboring territories works for Kremlin as a fully acceptable and adequate thing, although the most recent trend of its policy is tied up to setting the scenery for progressing paroxysms of chilling nostalgia about the times of sky-rocketing prices for oil, which seems to play as an indispensable tool in Russia’s terrorist supplying scheme.
Russian state authorities face ad infinitum problems as long as the majority of ISIS commanders in Syria and Iraq happen to be Russia’s citizens or officers of the ousted pro-Russian dictator of Iraq Saddam Hussein characterized by perfect knowledge and skills towards the usage of Soviet / Russian weaponry, which in turn created a painfully vital issue of their logistics support.
The foregoing renders strategically pronounced plans of Moscow regarding ISIS null and void, especially in the long-term prospective.
So far large Russian companies, e.g. “Air Cess” and “RostAvia” ran by V. But and K. Yaroshenko respectively, engaged into the supply of arms to terrorists found themselves down and out as early as 2008-2010.
Furthermore, the crash of many aviation companies affiliated with the aforementioned ones came to pass in timeline, which started shortly before the rise of ISIS in 2011 and proclamation of its sovereignty in 2014.
Interestingly, during the same period, namely between 2012-2013, Kremlin tried hard to get Ukraine involved as well, however, due to the deposition of former Ukrainian president V. Yanukovich in February, 2014, this old-new Russian-inspired terrorist supply scheme totally failed.
Therefore, the scope of means exploited by Russia to carry out illicit deliveries of Russian-manufactured arms narrowed down to one and only method, which implies the use of occupied territories of the borderline states.
Nevertheless, not all of them fit for such sensitive business. For example, Transnistria is landlocked and commands no big airports, let alone hastily annexed Abhazia, South Osetia and Crimea. Consequently, among all possible options for Russia only recently-appeared DPR/LPR in the east of Ukraine with Donetsk airport and Mariupol seaport seem to fully comply with needed criteria for gainful arms trafficking.
But what is at stake in this high-rolling game?
Firstly, Russia needs ISIS as a tool to consolidate Muslims on its own territory against the latter in order to wield them effectively within the Russian state.
Secondly, Russia suffers economically for quite a long time; hence ISIS is used by it as a pretext to jack up oil prices at all costs. In this context, ISIS declared vast territories in Iraq, east of Syria, north of Nigeria, east of Libya and border territories of Algeria as the provinces of its own state.
So, if ISIS manages to strike up a deal with al-Qaeda, the next step in its invasion plan will be the Strait of Ormuz.
Provided the terrorist threat grows there to the level unknown before, Kremlin will be able to rig oil prices, thus provide certain explanation to its lame economic performance.