Kremlin officials admit Russia initially lied about their aims in Syria

Although Russia initially said it intervened in Syria to help defeat ISIS, the campaign has mostly targeted other rebel groups.

And Russian officials have admitted that Moscow's intervention in Syria is focused on bolstering Syrian President Bashar al-Assad with the end goal of giving the outside world a choice between Assad or ISIS, Bloomberg Business reports.

Moscow's intervention, which has consisted of significant arms shipments and a high frequency of airstrikes conducted in coordination with ground assaults by the Assad regime, is aimed at recapturing territory from all rebels including both CIA-backed nationalist rebels and Islamist militias of varying strength and radicalism.

The Russian strikes strikes have occurred largely in the northwest of Syria along a critical stretch of largely rebel-held provinces that separate Assad's heartland of Latakia from Aleppo, the country's largest city before the war.

The conflation of all rebel groups into one unified idea of being a 'terrorist' allows Russia to operate with considerable latitude while carrying out its airstrikes. This flexibility means Russia can present its operation as being against ISIS and other terrorists, while really focusing on rebels in the northwest - such as the Syrian Army defector-led Free Syria Army - that pose a primary threat to the Assad regime.

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