Russia and China have vetoed a UN Security Council resolution seeking to induce Syria’s Assad regime to stop killing its own citizens. Moscow has been particularly vociferous about preventing “external interference” in Syria or of even supporting the call for Bashar al-Assad to cede power to his vice president (as has occurred—at least officially—in Yemen). Chinese statements have been more measured, and it is doubtful that Beijing would have voted against the resolution if Moscow had even abstained on it.

Why, then, is Russia in particular so adamant about protecting the Assad regime? Many observers—especially Russian ones—note that Moscow felt betrayed by what happened in Libya last year. After abstaining (along with China) on the Security Council resolution calling for a no-fly zone over Libya, the US and NATO actively supported the Libyan opposition, which eventually overthrew the Qaddafi regime and formed a new government. Moscow fears that allowing the passage of a similar resolution against Syria would lead to a similar NATO intervention with similar results. Moscow would then lose its closest ally in the Middle East, along with access to naval facilities at Tartus, a close arms relationship, and investments in the petroleum and other sectors of the Syrian economy.

But as Najib Ghadbian of the opposition Syrian National Council (SNC) Secretariat General noted on the US. government-sponsored Al Hurra TV on February 1, the SNC has been in frequent talks with the Russians, seeking to reassure them that close Syrian-Russian relations would continue after the rise of a new government in Damascus. Surely, then, it would behoove Russia to be somewhat neutral in the ongoing Syrian conflict just to hedge its bets in case the SNC becomes the new government. But Moscow is not doing so. Why?

There appear to be two main reasons for this. One is that Moscow genuinely believes that Washington and its European allies misunderstand what is going on in Syria. Instead of the downfall of the Assad regime leading to a democratic government as the West believes, Moscow fears that it could give rise to a radical Sunni regime that is not only anti-Western, but also anti-Russian. In Moscow’s view, American-led interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya have left all three of these countries in a mess. Moscow fears that US intervention in Syria will lead to the same result, and that Russian interests will be negatively affected for long after what Moscow sees as an inevitable American withdrawal.