Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is a man in the middle….the middle of a campaign. He wants to be Russia’s president — again. He’s in the middle of protests against him. So he’s staging his own support rally in response. And Putin is also in the middle of the international outrage over the violence in Syria. Russia sells lots of weapons to Syria and Putin (along with his representatives at the UN) are neutering any real efforts to end the government-sponsored violence in Syria.