It was a great scene even if only apocryphal: There sat Saudi intelligence chief Bandar bin Sultan in Moscow, like Mephistopheles, cooing seductively at President Putin about Russian/Saudi “shared values,” looking to make a deal.
He offered that if only Russia would back away from its support of Assad in Syria, Saudi Arabia would go on a Russian military gear spending spree, Russia would be granted a larger role in Middle Eastern affairs, and even Saudi-controlled jihadists in the Caucuses would be put on a leash for the duration of the Winter Olympic games in Sochi.
Putin was said to have laughed off the temptation.
The story was so dramatic you almost wanted it to be true, and perhaps elements of it were. But after a week of hanging it out there to titillate, a Putin aide quashed it, insisting that the discussion between bin Sultan and Putin was only on “philosophical” matters