A year has now passed since the bombing of a Russian passenger airliner over the Sinai Peninsula. At the time, this terrorist act looked like being the first of many: Russia had entered the Syrian conflict a short while previously, and the tragedy was interpreted as the Islamists’ first act of revenge against Moscow. How has Russia’s involvement in the battle against Islamic State impacted the Kremlin’s domestic and foreign policy?

Russian political analyst Nikolai Petrov maintains that the current tensions are sure to be followed by a de-escalation; should this fails to transpire, Vladimir Putin will, so he believes, struggle to lead the country all the way to the next presidential election, currently scheduled for March 2018.

When the Russian airliner exploded over the Sinai a year ago, you conjectured that the threat of further terrorist attacks in Russia – and against Russians worldwide – would only increase.  We have not, however, witnessed a single major terrorist act against Russians in the intervening period, whether in Russia or beyond its borders. Why do you think that might be?

It seems to me that the security services have been fairly proactive in their approach. The explosion of the airliner over the Sinai served as a very strong signal regarding the necessity of additional security measures. In some cases, contacts with countries such as Egypt and Turkey, where the situation is beyond the control of the Russian security services, have been curtailed. In this sense, the risk of terrorist attacks has been partially minimised, and the adoption of additional security measures has meant that, as of yet, we’ve not witnessed any further large-scale attacks.

Yet the threat hasn’t disappeared?

Of course it hasn’t. It’s not even clear whether the danger is greater when Russian intervention in foreign conflicts seems to be yielding success, with the Islamists in a correspondingly weaker position, or when – as is the case in Syria – the situation seems ambiguously and unstably poised. I don’t believe the danger of comparable terrorist attacks will decrease, regardless of any successes – or failures – of Russian intervention in conflicts beyond its borders.

Opinion polls would suggest that Russians’ fears have become more global in character: it’s not so much terrorist attacks as the risk of World War III, precipitated by the Russia-West standoff over Syria, that they’re worried about now. Yet the vast majority of respondents also believe that Russia should continue to intervene in the Syrian conflict. How does that figure?

Russians get their information about the conflict from television, and interpret what they see in a very positive light; the TV images look positive to them because they don’t feature any actual casualties, losses, and so on. It’s important to understand – and the polls bear this out – that Syria constitutes an abstract picture of virtual successes, and, though these are positively perceived, they by no means serve as a counterbalance to the problems Russians see in their immediate surroundings. In this sense, the influence of the Syrian conflict on the popularity of the regime, and on the levels of popular support it enjoys, is either nil or negligible. As long as the TV images remain pretty and blood-free, Russians will be inclined to support developments in Syria. But when they’re asked about their confidence in various deputies and in the government itself, they make it clear that their trust has decreased, the virtual successes in Syria notwithstanding.

Earlier this year you were saying that, in the eyes of Vladimir Putin, the Syrian operation represented a search for a new common enemy that would make it possible for Russia to move beyond its confrontation with the West over Ukraine. Do you believe that Putin has achieved this objective? At first glance, it would seem that the very opposite has come to pass: rather than “displacing” the Ukraine issue, Syria has only added to it.

I think it’s still too early to judge whether the ploy has succeeded or not – both in terms of the problems facing the regime within Russia and in terms of Russia’s relations with the West. I believe the escalation we’re seeing today will ultimately give way to a new détente. The more serious today’s situation appears, the greater (or so the Kremlin believes) the chances of negotiating some sort of deal with the West. But I think the situation could change very dramatically in the near future – even within a month, say, or at least before the year is out.

Are you referring to the US presidential election?

I’m referring not so much to the US election as to the fact that, as far as I see it, the Kremlin has until the end of the year to determine its position with regard to the [presidential] elections [of March 2018] here in Russia. And that has everything to do with money, which the Kremlin requires if it is to survive until the elections without bringing them forward. And it can’t get that money anywhere other than on global financial markets, to which end it is imperative to improve relations with the US.

What if they fail to reach a deal even after the American elections? What if Hillary Clinton comes to power and adopts a muscular approach to Russia? Say Russia continues its interventions in Syria and fails to reach a compromise with the West over Ukraine – what options would be open to the regime in 2017? Could they just go on using both conflicts to distract the populace from the country’s domestic problems, and do so ad infinitum?

The problem for the regime is that the “distractive power” of these conflicts isn’t really all that great anymore. Trust levels have plummeted in recent months – and that’s not only trust in the government, it’s trust in the president himself. This represents a very dangerous development for the regime, which has practically exhausted all opportunities to bolster its popularity by engineering foreign-policy intrigues and so forth. If the Kremlin doesn’t manage to de-escalate tensions, reach some sort of deal with the West and get hold of the money that would buy it some time before the 2018 elections, it will, I think, be forced into holding early elections. I therefore believe that we’ll see some fairly dramatic developments before the year is out, potentially including a sharp change of direction in relations with the West – or at least an attempt to bring that change about.