Missiles rain down, buildings collapse, children wail. Horrendous scenes regardless of where they occur. 

But this is not Gaza, this is Ukraine – every day for over 18 months.

Which makes Vladimir Putin’s “humanitarian” interventions over events in the Middle East – most significantly by inviting Hamas representatives to Moscow this week – all the more cold-blooded. Try telling the child of a parent killed in one of the thousands of Russian bombardments that the Kremlin believes innocent people – including women and children – should “not be punished for other people’s crimes.”

But, in truth, in the unscrupulous world of geopolitics, the crisis in the Middle East is too good an opportunity for Moscow to miss. For the first time in almost two years, international attention – at least in the West – has shifted away from the Kremlin’s disastrous “special operation” in Ukraine, offering Putin a leg-up back onto the world stage. Hence his recent calls to Prime Minister Netanyahu, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, and the leaders of Egypt, Iran, and Syria, ostensibly to negotiate a ceasefire.