Hmm. I don’t know. So, I don’t know if Russia is blaming other parties, but it might not be all that unexpected. Remember earlier in the war, when you had the “firehose of falsehood” strategy playing a larger role? Like, Russia had an information strategy that didn’t have one consistent narrative, but a number of dueling, not-fully-supported narratives.

You’re right to the extent that it means that there isn’t one extra-specially really compelling story, but I think that Russia is probably more-willing to promote competing narratives than any other country that I’m aware of.

It may be that the Kremlin’s real concern is less building support for the conflict with Ukraine, but rather countering political pressures to act strongly against IS right now. IS engaging in glorious jihad is just a headache from the Kremlin’s standpoint that they don’t really want to deal with right now – which, frankly, I can understand, as Russia’s plate is kinda full. If the Kremlin doesn’t respond, then it probably isn’t gonna go over well domestically. If they do, then they gotta use some resources that could be used against Ukraine.

In World War II, US pre-war plans for the event of a concurrent conflict with Nazi Germany and Japan involved deferring war with Japan as long as possible. Japan had very limited ability to really affect the long-term balance of power; one could fight Japan whenever, and in fact it was advantageous to build up a larger naval force first, but Germany had potential to knock over major powers; one wanted to act sooner rather than later there. Politically, Japan attacking the US at Pearl Harbor created a political problem for the US over political pressure to act against Japan rather than Germany (though, in the event, that was resolved in a week when Hitler declared war on the US for his own reasons).

My guess is that the Kremlin likely doesn’t really want to deal with Russians outraged over Moscow being kicked in the teeth and pushing for action now. All else held equal, the Kremlin probably does want to act against IS…just not to prioritize it relative to Ukraine.