NEW REALITIES OF WORLD POLITICS

After the attacks in Paris and the recognition of the Russian airliner's disaster over the Sinai as a terrorist attack, as well as the meeting of world leaders at the G20 summit, there was hope that a united alliance would be forged against the Islamic State (IS) group. Furthermore, it was assumed that France could become a liaison between the United States and Russia. As it turned out later, however, Francois Hollande was communicating with the Kremlin and the White House in different logical and temporal parallels.

Moreover, there are strange contextual peculiarities in the dialogue between France and the United States even as they communicate directly, without involving Russia. After all, Paris is already involved in the international coalition led by the US. The Foreign Policy magazine reports about more than 8,000 air strikes carried out by the United States and its allies against the IS since August 2014. Apparently, that was not enough, and now Paris is asking Washington to intensify its efforts. However, such requests are coming not only from Paris. According to The Guardian, European diplomats are trying to convey to the Obama administration that the migration crisis, caused by the chaos in the Middle East, destabilizes Europe. Meanwhile, the Americans are more concerned with the issue of how to prevent such a critical situation in the United States. The House of Representatives of the US Congress has adopted a bill proposed by the Republicans, according to which the operation of the programme geared towards reception of refugees from Syria and Iraq should be suspended, lest IS terrorists should enter the United States under the guise of refugees.

As for destroying the terrorists in the place of their direct deployment, Barack Obama thinks that the victory over the IS is unattainable while Bashar al-Assad remains in power in Syria. According to Assad, however, exactly the opposite is true: a political settlement agreed on in Vienna is impossible as long as part of Syria is controlled by the terrorists.

In turn, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova responded to the words of the head of the White House by saying that to link Assad's departure with the fight against the IS is a manifestation of the criminal logic, which exposes civilians to the events like those in Paris. Moscow understands that once Assad is gone, Russia will lose its legitimate right to remain in Syria.

In the meantime, the Kremlin seeks to expand the legitimacy of its military presence in the Middle East, and not only there, it seems. After the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) established that there was an act of terror on board the A321 airplane over the Sinai, Putin vowed to "find and punish" those responsible for the blast "anywhere in the world". The words seemed vaguely familiar and conjured up a vivid allusion to the past, as many Russians remembered that back in 1999, Putin already promised to find and waste terrorists even in the outhouse.

This time, however, there is a significant difference - the Kremlin has made it clear that, in searching for the perpetrators of the terror act on board the A321, "Russia will act in accordance with Article 51 of the UN Charter which provides for the right of States to self-defence". Prior to that, Russia only had a request from the Assad regime, according to which Russia could act against terrorists in Syria alone. Now Moscow reserves the right to attack any state that it deems guilty of committing acts of terror or involvement in them. The permission to use Russian armed forces abroad, issued by Russia's Federation Council on 30 September 2015, contains no geographic or time limits. Moreover, the FSB announced a 50m-dollar reward for assistance in tracking down the terrorists, while Foreign Minister Lavrov said that "the right to self-defence will be implemented by all available means - both political and military, including through the agency of special services and intelligence". So in the near future, we may hear not only about the use of air bombs, but also about operations of special services like "Yandarbiyev in Qatar" or "Poisoning of the 'Black Arab'".

It is noteworthy that, while little is known thus far about the terrorists who blew up the Russian plane over Egypt, those who perpetrated the massacre in Paris either have been wiped out or are being closely followed. However, the threat still does exist across the European Union. Hollande called the Paris attacks "an act of war", apparently implying that the entire Western world should stand shoulder to shoulder to eliminate the threat. Nevertheless, the French president somehow has not turned to NATO to exercise famous Article Five of the organization's Charter, according to which an attack on one NATO country would be considered an attack on the entire alliance. European experts explain this by the reluctance of the French to coordinate every military initiative with the other 27 allies - from the US to Turkey. The experts also point out that the French government has very wisely exercised Article 42 of the Lisbon Treaty, which stipulates: "If a Member State is the victim of armed aggression on its territory, the other Member States shall have towards it an obligation of aid and assistance by all the means in their power". Now EU partners will provide whatever assistance they can or deem it necessary, including intelligence data. But this list does not include the war in Syria. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said he believes the participation of Germany in air strikes against IS is inappropriate. David Cameron promised to get the House of Commons' approval for the British campaign in Syria, but many conservatives were against.

In such a situation Hollande, quite predictably, turned his eyes to Moscow, perhaps being guided by the principle "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". It seems that Russia is now demonstrating all of its military capabilities in Syria: it is bombing militants with new stealth cruise missiles from a submarine deployed in the Mediter-ranean and increasing the number of sorties using long-range aircraft with strategic bombers TU-22, TU-95 and TU-160 taking off from airfields in Mozdok and Engels in Russia. It is noted that the Mediterranean grouping of the Russian Navy located off the coast of Syria may be strengthened, in case of necessity, by ships of the Northern and Baltic fleets. The area of Russian strikes against the IS has been extended to include the capital of the "Caliphate", Rakka. As a result, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius suddenly perceived a "change" in Russia's strategy which Paris considered to be "genuine". There is a tentative Russian-French friendship emerging at sea. Given that the air cover of the Russian Air Force aviation group in the SAR is provided by the Russian missile cruiser "Moskva" deployed in the Eastern Mediterranean, the French aircraft carrier "Charles de Gaulle" is heading to the same area. On 17 November, Putin and Hollande agreed to ensure coordination between the military authorities and intelligence agencies of the two countries and then even agreed to meet in Moscow.

It was not so long ago that Western political analysts called Putin a "pariah in world politics", and now the president of France is to visit him for talks. Not surprisingly, Moscow turned a blind eye to the fact that France, as a member of the EU and a partner of the United States, has always supported the sanctions policy of Washington and Brussels against the Kremlin and even refused to sell Mistrals to Moscow. According to some observers, it is possible that in the hope of establishing relations with Europe and forming a coalition with itself as the leader, Russia went even so far as to agree on the restructuring of Ukraine's debt of 3bn dollars. However, this gesture was not appreciated in Kiev. Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk insisted that the principles of debt restructuring should be the same for all: "You (Russia) will not get any other terms than those other lenders have. Basic conditions are reducing the debt by 20 per cent and deferring all debts for four years. If you do not accept this, then you will have a decision of the Ukrainian government imposing a moratorium on the payment of 3bn dollars to Russia".

In addition, the European Union and the United States intend to extend and expand sanctions against Russia, and this issue will be considered at the EU summit in mid-December. However, Putin certainly thinks that a lot of things may change until mid-December.

It cannot be ruled out that the United States is guided by the same principle. Thus, speaking at the 69th session of the UN General Assembly in 2014, Obama called the "Ebola virus, Russia's actions in Europe and the terrorists in Syria and Iraq" major global threats. One year later, on 18 November, the head of the White House suddenly admitted on the sidelines of the APEC summit that he "always supported Russia's struggle against the IS". The comparison of the two statements made by the same president at an interval of one year shows that playing a waiting game has actually paid off for the United States. Indeed, Ebola has disappeared, whereas the second "threat" is now fighting the third "threat". This was also noticed by the IS militants, who presented their views on the conflict in Ukraine, which should seemingly be very remote for them, in a glossy magazine (!) they publish. According to the Islamists, Ukraine is the field of struggle between Russia and the West. But then it turns out that the enemies of the IS are fighting not only with members of the group but also among themselves. So the jihadists' interest in tracking events in Donbass is quite logical.

It should be admitted that IS militants are being logical in every respect. Contrary to the initial view that the "subjects of the Caliphate" are primitive fanatics and ignorant barbarians, the Western world is slowly beginning to wise up and understand that their adversaries are actively using not only weapons, but also brains. They cannot possibly do without this if they have been opposing the most powerful armies in the world for so long. According to The Wall Street Journal, the IS is one of the most technologically savvy extremist groups capable of confronting advanced hackers. Militants leave messages in social networks in different languages and destroy historical sites not only and not so much because of dull hatred towards ancient buildings and artefacts. Rather, it is business bringing in millions, because all of the captured cities have rich history dating back to antiquity, with museums exhibiting old coins, statues, weapons, fragments of mosaics, ornaments and much more. The price for each of these trophies can reach up to several tens of millions of dollars.

Also, militants successfully cope with the task of finding buyers for their oil. The Italian newspaper la Repubblica published witness accounts of those who "had the opportunity to visit the areas controlled by the IS". According to them, queues of road tankers stretched out for up to 6 km near the oil fields. By the way, on 18 November, Russian bombers began "free hunting" for such tankers. In the meantime, US aircraft have destroyed by bombing - for the first time since the beginning of the campaign in Syria - 116 IS oil tankers in the province of Deir ez-Zor. Prior to this, as noted, the US military refrained from such attacks for fear of civilian casualties.

Apparently, it is high time to deal with the IS budget in earnest. At the recent G20 summit in Antalya, Putin said that, according to the Russian security services, the financing of the terrorists was coming from 40 countries, including from some of the G20 countries. Of course, these countries had not been named in the best traditions of Agatha Christie: there were only plenty of suspects. Soon afterwards, however, the media reported about the detention of people involved in financing the terrorists. Thus, the AP agency disseminated a statement by the Interior Minister of Kuwait about the arrest of extremist group leader Osama Hayat, who confessed to the purchase of weapons ... in Ukraine for delivery to IS militants.

It can be assumed that all of the above parallels are random, but on the other hand, can there be so many coincidences at a time? Actors in international politics are restrained by the development of modern information technologies - events follow each other with a kaleidoscopic speed, and the audience of the media and social networks on the Internet has time to save and archive them, and this gives us a chance. In geometry, parallel lines never intersect; but in politics, everything is possible. Therefore, the hope still remains.