p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 35.5px; font: 14.0px Helvetica; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000} span.s1 {font-kerning: none} span.s2 {font-kerning: none; color: #ff2d20; -webkit-text-stroke: 0px #ff2d20} span.s3 {text-decoration: underline ; font-kerning: none; color: #0433ff; -webkit-text-stroke: 0px #0433ff} span.s4 {font: 8.0px Helvetica; font-kerning: none} On Jan. 27, Russia Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov hosted a group of Syrian opposition representatives in Moscow. After the talks earlier this week in Astana, Kazakhstan, Moscow was looking to double down on its mediation role, even though big news wasn’t expected from the meeting at Russia’s Foreign Ministry.
A Russian journalist covering the event was skeptical: “These aren’t the militant opposition groups that were present in Astana; this is just some ‘tamed opposition.’” Indeed, the people involved in the Moscow meeting were mainly from the so-called Hmeymim, Moscow-Cairo and Astana opposition groups that are deemed Russia-friendly, though it took Moscow time and effort to make it happen.