Even before Russia started bombing targets in Syria, it should have been clear to all involved that its actions would follow the pattern President Vladimir Putin set in Ukraine. He will be indiscriminately ruthless in making sure his allies achieve territorial gains to improve their negotiating position, and his diplomacy and propaganda machine would do its best to erect a smokescreen around his true plans and actions.
On Wednesday the Federation Council, the upper house of Russia's parliament gave Putin permission to use troops overseas, an obligatory procedure under Russian law. That's how the Crimea annexation began in March, 2014, too, but there's a striking difference between the two Federation Council resolutions. Last year's specifically permitted Putin to use the Russian military in Ukraine. Wednesday's document is a blanket one. It doesn't mention Syria at all, granting the president the right to use "the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation outside the territory of the Russian Federation on the basis of commonly accepted principles and norms of international law."
The difference between the two documents is proof of similar tactics. Putin isn't really bound by the decisions of his rubber-stamp parliament. He only uses the parliamentary procedure to strike fear into his enemies. In March, 2014, the Federation Council resolution mentioned Ukraine but not specifically Crimea, warning the revolutionary government in Kiev to stand down and let Putin take over the peninsula or potentially face a full-scale invasion. In September, 2015, Putin is telling whomever it may concern that anything goes in his latest military adventure — including, implicitly, operations in countries neighboring Syria, such as Iraq.