“To what end?...For an excuse to bomb ISIS?”
Putin doesn’t seem like the kind of guy to kill INNOCENT CIVILIANS to further his policies. He’ll leave that to Bill Clinton and people of his type.
In the case of Syria, Putin is MORE THAN HAPPY to test his MODERNIZED military against any in the West, including our TOTALLY GUTTED military.
So no, he had no motive there.
The guy was with the KGB, then FSB for around 20 years. He knows how to fool and deceive people. They are experts at it.
Putin is not testing modern weapons in Syria. Russia is using old unguided bombs. Basically spending them before the best before is over. In that way of looking these bombs cost him nothing.
http://time.com/4059442/russia-bombing-syria-isis-assad/
““Those aren’t precision weapons,†[Lieut. General Bob] Otto said Thursday of the Russian bombs. “We can tell what’s hanging off the airplane†via intelligence imagery, he said. They’re “dumb†bombs, guided to their targets only by gravity and the plane’s position and velocity when they’re released. Such weapons are notoriously inaccurate.”