Whatever Islamic State made of Vladimir Putin's order to the Russian navy to treat French forces "as allies" in the waters off Syria, it will have sent a shiver through at least a couple of Paris's allies.
Russia's president gave the command on Tuesday, as he and his French counterpart pledged separately to crush a terror group that claims to have launched Friday's attacks in Paris and downed a Russian airliner over Egypt two weeks earlier.
Putin and François Hollande are united in the need to respond to these atrocities, but for the Kremlin this is also a chance to dismantle a US-led western coalition that has sought to punish and isolate Russia.
Just three months ago, Moscow was livid with Hollande for cancelling a €1.2 billion sale of two warships to Russia's navy, due to Putin's bloody destabilisation of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea.
That blow came amid mounting setbacks for Putin: Ukraine’s conflict is bringing him no benefit, and Kiev still wants to ally with the West; and an EU-US sanctions front is holding, and hurting Russia’s economy in tandem with low oil prices.
Putin is often compared to a card player who makes the best of a mediocre hand, and easily bluffs a nervous West. By September, Putin’s hand needed strengthening – so he added a new card.
By sending combat aircraft and military advisers to Syria and striking opponents of his ally, President Bashar al-Assad, Putin wrested back a seat at the top table of Middle Eastern diplomacy – catching the US and EU on the hop, and forcing them to deal with Moscow if they want to end Syria’s conflict.
Russian state media launched its own campaign, lauding the country's servicemen for striking militants in Syria – most of them not IS but other groups fighting Assad, the West claimed – and praising Putin for showing Nato members that they no longer held a monopoly on military intervention far from home.
Russian airliner
The death of all 224 passengers on a Russian airliner that disintegrated over the Sinai peninsula on October 31st left the Kremlin at a loss, and for more than a fortnight it refused to confirm western assertions that a bomb was to blame.
Moscow confirmed that IS downed the plane only after the Paris attacks had reduced Putin’s exposure to claims that his Syria campaign was endangering Russian lives, and following G20 talks last weekend at which he played the statesman, waiting patiently for the West to see sense and come back to him.
"We proposed co-operation on antiterrorism; unfortunately our partners in the United States in the initial stage responded with a refusal," Putin said.
“But life indeed moves on, often very quickly, and teaches us lessons. It seems to me that everyone is coming around to the realisation that we can wage an effective fight only together,” he added.
“We must now look ahead, we must unite our efforts in the fight against a common threat.”
Russia has long argued that Ukraine – where it fomented and supports an insurgency that has killed more than 8,000 people, and is suspected of involvement in bringing down a Malaysian airliner over rebel-held territory in 2014 – is too trivial a matter to be allowed to wreck East-West relations.
Many Europeans agree, and have long called for a rapprochement with Russia which, despite scepticism in Washington, seems to be gaining momentum.
Diplomatic activity After a weekend of intense diplomatic activity, and a tete-a-tete between Putin and US president Barack Obama at the G20 summit, secretary of state John Kerry said a “gigantic step” had been made on Syria.
“We are weeks away, conceivably, from the possibility of a big transition for Syria,” Kerry claimed, without explaining how the West’s aim to remove Assad could be squared with Putin’s priority of protecting Russia’s Middle East interests.
After meeting Obama, Putin said he may ease repayment terms on $3 billion that Ukraine owes Russia, a rare concession to Kiev which, while welcome there, only fuelled its sense of being a chip in the major powers’ global game.
In the hours after Friday’s Paris attacks, Putin’s allies were already urging the West to ditch support for Ukraine’s government and reconcile with Russia in an anti-IS coalition.
"The Kiev junta is one of the main obstacles to a joint battle of the US, EU and Russia against terrorists," said pro-Kremlin analyst Sergei Markov.
Russia is confident that a Europe preoccupied by terrorism and a refugee crisis is ready to put aside concerns over Ukraine, and deep US reservations, and work with Putin in a fight against IS that could presage much broader re-engagement.
"During the second World War, Nazism forced the USSR and the West to overlook their ideological differences," Russian newspaper Vedomosti wrote this week.
“Will IS become the new Hitler?”