The legitimacy of a country's foreign policy is often determined by how the media report on the country's political activity outside that country. The country's involvement in a conflict or war and the reason for engaging needs to be communicated to the public globally with a mediaframing strategically. This article aims to explore the framing of the Russian military's involvement in the Syrian civil war by the online media outlet Sputnik. The researchers employed a qualitative content analysis method on 238 articles published by Sputnik between February and September 2016. During this period Russia and the United States, as two external powers involved in the Syrian civil war, agreed on a ceasefire. This development represented a strategic moment for Russia to communicate the activities of its military in Syria by using a framing strategy in Sputnik. This research revealed that Sputnik actively used framing to legitimize the Russian military's involvement in the Syrian civil war. Specifically, the media outlet used the frames of responsibility, morality, and conflict to attract public attention and to shape their perspectives about the Russian military's involvement in the Syrian civil war as necessary and positive. The findings indicate that, at Sputnik, framing constituted an attempt to form a positive image of Russia as a strong state to the international world through news related to the involvement of the Russian military in Syria's civil war.