Unlike his predecessors from the days when Russia was the USSR — Stalin, Brezhnev, and Andropov, especially — Putin himself has shown little evidence of personal antisemitism, and seems well-disposed toward his country’s Jewish community. . ..…

As the Helsinki summit showed, Putin apparently believes he can compel the US into reaching an agreement on Syria that reflects more of Moscow’s interests than Washington’s.[8] In addition Russia has learned a great deal since 1990 and in many ways behaves differently than did the USSR,..…

In 1991, on a mission to the area to save the Soviet Union’s regional position, he said that Middle Eastern leaders “consider it necessary that a united economic and military-strategic area of the USSR [Union of Soviet Socialist Republics] be preserved.” ..…