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Ukraine Invasion Increases Friction Between Erdogan and Putin

by | Mar 2, 2022 | English

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The Turkish and Russian leaders have found themselves on opposite sides of a host of armed conflicts. In Ukraine, the stakes may be higher than ever.

By Carlotta Galli, New York Times,

In the hours before dawn, as the world held its breath watching the first movements of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on Thursday, the Turkish military made a last-minute dash to evacuate diplomatic staff and other citizens of Turkey from the capital, Kyiv.

Two military cargo planes entered Ukrainian airspace soon after midnight and circled down into Boryspil International Airport, the main civilian airport that lies 18 miles east of Kyiv city center.

But the planes ended up stranded. So too were their military crews, and the Turkish diplomats and citizens they were trying to evacuate. At 5 a.m., Russia unleashed the first salvos of its war on Ukraine, making any flight out impossible.

Pictures of the airport the next day, obtained from the commercial satellite imagery company Planet Labs, show two gray military cargo planes parked in the open at one side of the airport, which so far has not been a target of Russian airstrikes.

The stuck planes have now become Exhibit A of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s misreading of the Ukraine situation, opening him to criticism at home for not evacuating Turkish citizens in time, for misjudging President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and for not taking American warnings of an invasion seriously enough.

Mr. Erdogan and Mr. Putin have had a sometimes close, sometimes contentious relationship as the Turkish leader has cultivated links with Moscow — partly as leverage against the West, but also out of necessity, since Turkey is being squeezed from several sides by Russia.

Turkey is a NATO member, but so much distrust has built up because of Mr. Erdogan’s flirtations with Russia that it was not invited into at least one of the alliance’s leadership-level meetings before the Russian invasion, according to Asli Aydintasbas, a senior fellow with the European Council on Foreign Relations.

At the same time, Mr. Putin and Mr. Erdogan have in recent years found themselves on opposite sides of conflicts in Azerbaijan, Libya and Syria.

Russian troops in Syria have long threatened to press their offensive against the last rebel-held area in that country, which could force up to four million Syrians to flee into Turkey. And since 2020, the Russian military has expanded its footprint in the Caucasus region.

Now Russia looks poised to dominate the northern shores of the Black Sea with its advances in Ukraine, where Mr. Erdogan has irritated Russia by selling Turkish-made drones, some of which have been used to strike Russian armored convoys since the invasion began, according to Ukrainian officials.

Mr. Erdogan and Mr. Putin spoke on the telephone on Feb. 23, hours before the start of the invasion. Mr. Erdogan repeated his offer of mediation between Russia and Ukraine and reiterated his invitation to Mr. Putin to visit Istanbul for a meeting with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky.

“President Erdogan stated that he always attaches great importance to the close dialogue he established with Russian President Putin on regional issues, that they have seen the positive results of this and that he is determined to maintain this understanding,” an official statement from the Turkish presidency said.

Mr. Erdogan has maintained an even tone in his public statements over the situation, describing the invasion of Ukraine as “unacceptable” but continuing to call for a peaceful resolution.

But there is a sense of anger in Mr. Erdogan’s presidential circle that Mr. Putin lied to them about his intentions in Ukraine, Ms. Aydintasbas said.

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