What did the Russians know?

Is it possible that the Russian military knew their Syrian regime allies were about to drop chemical bombs on civilians in the northern Syrian town of Idlib last week? There were supposed to have been some Russian officers present at the airbase from where the airstrike was launched. So, did they know? The US believes they did, or if they didn't, they should have! And was this airstrike personally ordered, or at least personally approved by Bashar al-Assad? For us simple souls it seems incomprehensible that the Syrians and/or Russians actually thought dropping chemical bombs filled with sarin nerve agent would be a good idea at this particular juncture in the six-year war. But could it have been a deliberate ploy to see how Trump would react, in other words, to test out his threshold for taking action. Trump had said he didn't want to get sucked into the Syrian war, but what would tempt him? A few nasty pictures on CNN, perhaps, showing Syrian children crying in pain after being coated in chemicals from the sky? Russian/Syrian logic here is difficult to grasp. This is true KGB-style Kremlinesque thinking. Kill 80 or so people to see how Trump will react!!! Can that be the strategy here? If so, then what. Does that make it easier for Putin and Assad to plot the future, knowing that Trump reacts emotionally when making a decision? This sort of thinking bodes ill for the future, for all of us. Putin trying to outplay Trump, Trump wanting to punish Putin, Putin then playing the statesman masterstroke, calling off the war in Syria but on his terms. He tried that one with Obama over the use of chemical weapons in Syria in 2013, and he won that one. I think the former KGB lieutenant-colonel is up to his old tricks again.