i doubt the Russians really NEED this plane to fight ISIS, defend Syria, etc.
but maybe as long as they’re there...maybe they figure they may as well give some of their weapons systems some exercise
sort of like owning a rottweiler ... its a good idea to take him out for a walk once in awhile
Or, this is aimed at promoting the Mig-29 upgrade concept. There are around 15 nations that still operate vanilla Mig-29s, which suffer from poor range and no air-to-ground capability.