Hundreds of Syrians have died in the days since Moscow and Beijing blocked the UN resolution backing the Arab League’s plan for President Bashar al-Assad to step aside. Among the dead are not just those fighting pro-regime forces, but scores of ordinary civilians. These people would probably have died regardless. But their deaths, the more than 5,000 that went before, and those yet to come, render even more incomprehensible Russia and China’s decision to block condemnation of the Assad regime’s vicious hold on power.

Moscow, and to a lesser extent Beijing, have justified their position by citing betrayal over intervention in Libya. Both countries then abstained in a UN vote only because they had been assured that the aim was to prevent bloodshed, and not regime change. The Syrian resolution may have come close to advocating regime change by calling for a transitional government. But Moscow at least has already accepted this prospect as it is talking to the Syrian opposition.

There is a more pernicious force at work fuelling Russia’s obdurate stance. In the Moscow mindset, the Syrian uprising is a US ploy to extend influence. This post-cold war paranoia is fed by a political elite struggling to maintain its own credibility amid protests over a controversial election to reinstate Vladimir Putin as president. Syria is one of Russia’s last significant poles of influence in the Middle East and home to its only Mediterranean naval base. Yet Moscow risks its own interests by ignoring a call that comes not only from the west, but from the Arab world. Mr Assad’s regime is crumbling under pressure of sanctions, and he cannot control the whole country. When the regime eventually falls, the failure of Moscow and Beijing to act will be remembered.