(CNN) Vladimir Putin and Bashar al-Assad, the Black Sea and a balcony corner of the Bocharov Ruchey State residence in Sochi, a favorite of the Kremlin head. You can also see one of Putin's many luxury watches peeking out from under his shirt, this one perhaps a Blancpain $10,000 piece, one that is often spotted on his wrist, according to activists.

Yet the context is as important as the timing. On Wednesday Putin is due to welcome Iran's Hassan Rouhani and Turkey Recip Tayyip Erdogan -- a noticeably small list of guests that leaves out the US and Europe -- to the same Black Sea resort to discuss a political settlement in Syria.

Here, on Monday, he met with Syria's Assad -- a man widely recognized as behind the deaths of thousands of his own citizens, but now, even after five years of savage sectarian warfare, the victor without many spoils.

Monday's meeting was presumably to explain to Assad what a Russian-brokered political settlement in Syria would look like, and perhaps for Moscow to hear input from Damascus before the real power brokers in this proxy war meet Wednesday to forge a deal.

Still, the dynamics of the hug are clear. Putin looks like 17 years in power have taken their toll, but he is grinning, and not "mired in the quagmire of Syria" as his detractors warned he would be when he entered the war in 2015. It should be captioned as though the war is over, even though days earlier there were reports of phosphorus being used on rebel-aligned civilians in the Damascus suburbs. You can't see Assad's face in this photograph, but this is the second time we are aware of that he has left Syria at all since the conflict began in 2011, so you can presume he's pleased about that, at least.

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