“The paradox of the situation in Syria is that Bashar al-Assad’s troops are now fighting in the forefront protecting the West’s most important values – religious and civil tolerance as well as a secular state. Strange incomprehension of all this by the West makes this battle inspiring Shakespeare’s tragedy,” the culture studies expert wrote.

“Russia itself is a multi-confessional country, where Christians, Jews, Shiites and Sunnis, Buddhists have been living peacefully side by side for centuries. Today support for the al-Assad regime is not simply the support for the lawful authorities in the situation that painfully reminds of the Chechen events in the 1990s. This is also the support for religious diversity and religious tolerance against fanaticism and obscurantism,” Osipov highlighted.