Addressing the nation for the first time in over six months, Syrian President Bashar Assad thanked Russia for its efforts to help find a political solution to Syria's conflict. This sounded ironic, because the rest of the speech was devoted to denying the very possibility of negotiating with those who should theoretically be the other party to the negotiations.

In the last days of 2012, Russia was again at the center of attention due to events in Syria. First, Syria's Deputy Foreign Minister, Faysal Maklad, visited Moscow, followed by the special envoy of the UN and the Arab League, Lakhdar Brahimi, but the leader of the Syrian national coalition, Ahmed Muaz al-Hatib, made a point of rejecting the invitation from the Russian Foreign Ministry until Moscow publicly apologizes for supporting the Assad regime. And the news that the amphibious assault ship Novocherkassk had sailed from the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk to the Syrian port of Tartus caused a wave of rumors, each one louder than the last, to erupt in media outlets sympathetic to the opposition. Rumors that an armada of Russian warships is supposedly heading to Syria, either to protect the “Alawite corridor” or remove Assad's chemical weapons.

The latter, if true, should surely be welcomed, because it would be much safer for such weapons to be kept in Russia, but unfortunately, none of these speculations are based in reality. Of course, the Russian ships in the Mediterranean Sea are directly relevant to the Syrian conflict, but any involvement in military action is out of the question. The task is much more practical: if the crisis escalates significantly and the country is engulfed in civil war, the Russian citizens there will need urgent assistance. Central to the new Russian ideology that seems to be taking root during Vladimir Putin's third term is the concept of protecting the country's citizens, wherever they are located. Much is riding on the success of this policy, so the inability to evacuate promptly any Russians who wish to leave Syria would be a blow to the administration's prestige. It is no coincidence that in 2011, when the civil war erupted in Libya, many Russian commentators pointed out to government officials that Beijing was able in a very short time to evacuate from the country 35,000 Chinese workers who were working on joint projects.

Somehow, the moderate optimism with which Lakhdar Brahimi left Moscow gave rise to hopes that some sort of plan to resolve the conflict had been worked out by the two main outside participants — the U.S. and Russia. No one will confirm the existence of such a plan officially or even privately, but it is not denied that there is new life in the process. What is in Moscow's interest today?