[But, but, but...who else will protect the Syrian oil fields from ISIS? ]
Lying for raison d’etat isn’t exactly a novel act. The Russians are certainly no angels in that respect. Point is we want our Kurdish client to be self-funding to the extent possible. The oil fields help a great deal. That the Russians want their Alawite client to pay back their loans using those oil proceeds is understandable, but not our problem.