Putin is trying to end the Civil war in Syria and tweak the nose of the US. The Telegraph said this:

The Kremlin is sending the full might of its Northern Fleet and part of the Baltic Fleet to reinforce a final assault on the city of Aleppo in a fortnight, according to Western intelligence.

This is a slap in the face of President Obama and the utterly ineffective John Kerry. The US has been working to end the civil war in Syria using diplomatic means (hopefully not James Taylor singing you’ve got a friend). Russia on the other hand has been supplying Assad with weapons and “advisors” and now is ramping their efforts up.

“They are deploying all of the Northern Fleet and much of the Baltic Fleet in the largest surface deployment since the end of the Cold War,” the diplomat said.