This week’s visit to Damascus by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov might inspire one to rely on literary allusions in discussing the development.

Lavrov traveled to Syria’s capital to hold talks with top Syrian leaders, and not surprisingly, emerged with an upbeat tone, saying President Bashar Assad was committed to ending the violence, while Russia was prepared to make efforts to move events in the direction of “peace.”

Lavrov’s trip might be a case of A Tale of Two Cities, since what he is seeing and hearing in Damascus might lead him to believe that the situation is somehow tolerable; some 150 kilometers away, there is a very tragic, different story in the city of Homs.

Lavrov might believe that Moscow can manage a struggle between War and Peace, and is playing this role to the hilt, as one of the few foreign officials still prepared to meet with Assad.

In the end, Lavrov has emerged only with promises from the Syrian president, the kind that all sides have heard before. Early on in the crisis, Turkey, and some Arab and Western states, indulged Assad by taking him at his word, only to quickly learn that his talk was just that – talk.

Arab and Western countries are now closing their embassies and recalling their ambassadors – the Russian official will likely have few competitors in town, in terms of those interested in helping the Syrian regime out of its dilemma.

Lavrov’s public spin on the situation is enough to make one’s head spin: there is a solemn pledge by Russia to help Syria find peace, by resurrecting the “basis of positions” spelled out in an initiative by the Arab League. This is the same Arab League proposal that Russia vetoed in the United Nations Security Council.

Unofficially, there is talk that Lavrov presented the Syrians with the latest timetable. The first week of March will see presidential elections in Russia; the minister reportedly conveyed the idea that until then, Damascus enjoys the backing of Moscow. After that date, all bets are off.

Russia is forgetting that Syria is more than just a few government buildings in its capital city. In the immediate vicinity of Damascus, the situation has changed dramatically in the last few weeks: Military defectors are increasingly able to control small bits of territory for short periods of time. In Homs, the massacres continue, while there is sporadic violence in a half dozen regions of Syria.

While the news of one dozen people killed used to accumulate over a 24-hour period, 12 lives lost might now take place on an hourly basis.

Russia might believe itself to be the only diplomatic force capable of resolving the question of War and Peace, but as it extends yet another lifeline to Syrian leaders, it is only allowing more death and destruction.