On Wednesday, Russia's Federation Council voted unanimously to support President Vladimir Putin's request to use military force abroad. In making his appeal to the legislature's upper house, the president did not specify to where he might deploy troops, but Russia has built up its military presence in Syria, where it supports the government forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Earlier Wednesday, Putin had submitted to the Federation Council a proposal to deploy "a contingent of troops" abroad on the basis of the "universally recognized principles and norms of international law."

At the General Assembly in New York on Monday (pictured), Putin had called for a broad UN-backed coalition to fight the "Islamic State" in Syria. The president also said he had not ruled out airstrikes against IS.

The Kremlin's chief of staff, Sergei Ivanov, said Assad had requested the military aid. He added, however, that the vote did not mean Russian ground forces would necessarily be engaged in war in Syria and that the move dealt only with the use of the air force.

According to US military officials, in recent weeks Russia has sent bombers, fighter jets, at least 500 troops and a slew of other military hardware to northwestern Syria, in what many consider an attempt to keep Assad in power. The buildup could lead to Russia's first military engagement in a distant theater of war since the Soviet Union's intervention in Afghanistan in 1979.

In 2014, Putin also asked parliament for permission to deploy troops abroad, a technical requirement under Russian law. Then he seized the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine.

mkg/sms (Reuters, AFP, dpa, AP)