Complex ties stretch across centuries and continents, but Turkey’s affinity for its ethnic kin is taking a backseat to global relations with Russia.
Ilmi Umerov, a Crimean Tatar political leader, was lying on a hospital bed in Simferopol, the capital of Crimea in his pajamas when Russian secret service agents carted him off to the airport and put him on a plane to Ankara with fellow Crimean Tatar political detainee Ahtem Chigoz.
War would bring Turkey under intense pressure from its Western allies to join putative sanctions against Russia, a critical trading partner and supplier of natural gas.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Feb. 3 meeting with his counterpart Volodymr Zelensky in Ukraine yielded a string of accords aimed at deepening economic and military ties between Ankara and Kyiv and thereby significantly raised the stakes for both sides should Russia attack the former Soviet state.
Grupul Wagner, o grupare de mercenari condusă de unul dintre cei mai apropiați aliați ai președintelui Rusiei, Vladimir Putin, transferă zeci de luptători din Africa în Europa de Est, unde forțele ruse amenință Ucraina.
Iran is well aware of the changing dynamic, and it would like to advance its interests by creating a fissure between Israel and Russia.
Why would Iran want to incite Israel to strike Russian personnel or facilities in Syria? To answer that question, we need to understand the evolution of Iranian and Russian interests in Syria, which have diverged over time. Today’s post-war situation in Syria is very different from just a few years ago when Assad was hanging by a thread for his survival. At that time, Russian and Iranian interests aligned in their shared desire to defeat ISIS and prop up the Syrian dictator.
It should matter little to the Chinese that American diplomats and a handful of their western allies will not be attending the Beijing Winter Olympics in February. What truly matters is that the Russians are coming.
The above is not an arbitrary statement. It is supported with facts. According to a survey conducted by China’s Global Times newspaper, the majority of the Chinese people value their country’s relations with Russia more than that of the EU and certainly more than that of the United States. The newspaper reported that such a finding makes it “the first time in 15 years that China-US ties did not top the list of the important bilateral relations in the Global Times annual survey.”
Vladimir Putin has again made it clear: It’s a different time. The post-Cold War days are over. The Empire’s imperialist arbitrary acts are going to be increasingly difficult to carry on.
Putin penned an article for Xinhua, the state-run media of China. It appears ahead of his Beijing visit to join the Winter Olympic, an event of solidarity and friendship, of pursuit of human endeavor to defy limits.
China, to the Russian president, is Russia’s strategic partner – partner on the arena of global politics and global relations, in resolving global and regional issues, in the area of peace, security and trade.
The United States announced Wednesday it is deploying another 3,000 troops to two East European NATO member states, further escalating the prospect of an all-out war on the continent. The nearly 2,000 paratroopers being sent to Poland will join a 4,000-man NATO force already there, while those dispatched to Romania will more than double the size of military personnel currently stationed in that Black Sea nation. Washington reiterated that it has another 8,500 soldiers on standby. In late January, it emerged that war planners had considered putting 50,000 boots on the ground in Eastern Europe.
President Tayyip Erdogan is set to visit his counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky in Ukraine on Thursday after pitching Turkey as a mediator to ease tensions with Russia, and an official said he was not picking any sides in the crisis.
The Turkish official told Reuters that Ankara expects tensions to ease after the meeting in Kyiv. On Wednesday, Ankara and Kyiv said they would sign a free trade agreement and other deals.
Why are Ukraine’s NATO ambitions so controversial? And could an all-out war break out? We answer the critical questions.
NATO allies, fearful of a potential ground invasion by Russia, have stepped up support for Kyiv by sending additional troops and military equipment to Ukraine.
The alliance says its move is in response to Russia’s continued military buildup along the Ukraine border.
Speaking at a press conference with Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orbán on Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the written response by the US to Russia’s key demands from December indicated that “the fundamental concerns of Russia have been ignored.”
The main demands from the December 17 document, which the Kremlin made public, were the non-extension of NATO, including a guarantee that Ukraine would not be admitted as a member; a return to its borders as agreed upon in the 1997 NATO-Russia agreement; and a guarantee that it would not station missiles in Eastern Europe and withdraw those that already exist.