Syria seems to be pretty affected by bad press these days. Just not in the Western sense of 'foreigners will think badly of us'.
Anyway, this is an important story. The automobile and the modern smartphone are important social markers.
In Russia, owning an automobile makes you reconsider entirely your relationship with the state. 'Corruption' transits from a hypothetical to the practical - you need to deal with corrupt highway cops and mismanaged road repair, and privileged officials too. A Russia where 20-40% people own cars and cellphones and 50% have Internet access appears not to be manageable by the old Putinist mechanism, not in the long term at least.