Aside from Russia's self interest in selling weaponry to Assad's Syrian government, it is Russian Prime Minister Putin's need to play chess with the U.S.  And PM Putin is no Bobby Fischer.  Russia a la PM Putin is making geo-political decisions that are counter-productive to its clandestine mission of power blocking the U.S.  The issue of Syria is unpopular within the global community as well as the regional Arab League.  Even though China also vetoed the U.N. Security Council resolution on Syria, China is not taking advantage of photo-ops - Russia is by inserting itself as a mediator.  Usually, mediators are neutral parties or the least self interested parties.  Russia is neither.  Russia, now that it has taken a much publicized stand, has a personal stake in keeping the Assad regime in place and successful - not just a business one.

Russia is preoccupied with the U.S., but the U.S. is not preoccupied with Russia to the dismay of PM Putin because PM Putin wants Russia to be relevant.  Consider the shirtless photo-op of PM Putin on a mountainside.  At the time, it was interpreted as a response to President Obama being photographed shirtless on a beach in Hawaii.  If German Chancellor Angela Merkel responded with her own photo-op in a swimsuit enjoying the Danube, it would seem completely out of character for her, but because it was PM Putin the photo-op received more attention from comedians than politicians.  For all the meddling in sovereign affairs that the U.S. is responsible for, PM Putin asserts it is Russia that the U.S. is most active in, the latest being the alleged voter fraud, not a result of PM Putin's command and control ruling party.

Since the strategy of blaming the U.S. for all sorts of evil has not had the desired effect, PM Putin is moving in a different direction with Syria.  What is a little bloodshed, atrocities, oppression, and delusion when the real issue is the influence of the U.S. as a global power.  Often speculated about, the sunsetting provision on the empire that is the U.S. has not been written, even if there are precepts for it.  Backing the Assad regime in Syria will not hasten the end of the U.S. as a global power, it will however shine a bright light on those global players that stand as an affront to democracy or advocacy.  Not the pre-packaged U.S. sold democracy, but the kind that has its origins in the grass beneath the feet of the oppressed - a place where the U.S. and its citizens once stood. 

So PM Putin, the strategy and focus of Russia should not be the U.S. because it has led you down a garden path laced with thorns.  Fundamental to being a global leader, outside of Russia, is the consent of those that are to be led and said confidence cannot be found in a country for whom bloodshed, atrocities, oppression, and delusion are minor violations.  Such a position, immediately calls for marginalization and Russia really cannot afford to be marginalized more than it has, especially when it seeks more than anything else - legitimacy.  And so Russia and PM Putin have become the "look at me" child making a mess to get attention - Syria, of course, being the mess.  The days of Gorbachev seem ever more distant in light of recent events.