On May 4th, Russia’s Sputnik news agency headlined:

“Lavrov: US Tried to Include Al-Nusra Front Positions in ’Silent’ Period”, and reported that Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, speaking in Moscow about the lengthy negotiations between himself and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to agree on conditions for a Syrian ceasefire and peace talks to take place between Syria’s government and Syria’s rebels, said, “During the negotiations, our US partners actually tried to draw the borders of this ‘zone of silence’ to include a significant number of positions occupied by al-Nusra [Front]. We managed to exclude this as it is absolutely unacceptable.”

Al Qaeda in Syria calls itself “Al Nusra.”

The “zone of silence” or “silent period” (and there are other phrases for it) refers to the areas in Syria that would be excluded from the ceasefire.

In other words: Lavrov was saying that whereas Russia’s President Putin refuses to stop military…