article: News and discussion programmes on state-controlled television are dominated by talk of the conflict and deliver a common message: that western policy in Syria has failed and President Vladimir Putin has stepped in to the rescue. "Russia is saving Europe from barbarism for the fourth time," the notorious anchorman Dmitry Kiselyov crowed on his weekly show. "Let's count: the Mongols, Napoleon, Hitler - and now Islamic State." The criticism from abroad, that Russia is actually ignoring IS targets to focus on opposition to President Bashar al-Assad, is dismissed as propaganda. "This is truly a matter of national security," foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told a packed press room this week. "We've experienced terrorism. We don't want to go through that again." As the vast majority of Russians get their news from TV, the message is starting to penetrate. A poll this week by the independent Levada centre in Moscow revealed that 72% of Russians support the airstrikes. That is a dramatic turn-around since the last survey before the military and media campaigns began, when a majority were opposed. It is a reassuring result for Vladimir Putin, for whom the Syria campaign is another chance to play the strong man and reassert Russia on the global power map. The first cruise missiles modern Russia has ever launched in combat were fired on his 63rd birthday; the dramatic images were screened repeatedly, almost like celebratory fireworks. The next day's newspapers hailed the barrage as proof that Russia is back to rival the USA, after President Putin's massive investment in a military modernization drive. But the Levada centre survey revealed another important statistic. "There is a clear fear that Russia will get stuck in Syria, like the Soviet Union did in Afghanistan; that this will be a long campaign, with human sacrifice and great cost," the centre's director Lev Gudkov points out. That is despite repeat assurances that Russia will not deploy ground troops. "The Kremlin is underlining that this is a short-term operation, and only from the air. But what happens if militants attack the Russian airbase? It's completely unclear how things would develop then," Mr Gudkov adds. And there is another problem brewing. Russia is busily portraying its Syria campaign as a war on terror. But the fact that it is supporting a Shia-led alliance against Sunni opposition has not been lost on its own Muslim population. At least 11% of Russian citizens are Muslim, most of them Sunni. At a recent ceremony at the new Moscow central mosque many expressed support for the policy of Vladimir Putin. They echoed a speaker inside who blamed the United States for sowing chaos in the Middle East. "They want to divide the Muslim world," Adam Delimkhanov argued. But privately, other mosque-goers voiced concern. "That's just politics," one man commented of the speech. "Of course we're worried. They're bombing Sunnis." Even official figures here show that more than 2,000 former Soviet citizens have joined the ranks of I.S and other extremist groups in Syria. Where key countries stand - Who is backing whom Why? What? How?
summary: With fighter jets flying up to 70 sorties a day in Syria, Russia's powerful media machine has gone into overdrive.