Turkish question

In the sky over Syria, for the first time in modern history, a combat incident occurred between Russia and the country - a member of NATO: the Russian Air Force fighter was shot down by a Russian bomber. Another incident of this kind may have unpredictable consequences

On November 24, the Russian army suffered the first officially recognized combat losses in Syria. The Air-Air missile is shot down by the Su-24 bomber, the crew commander Oleg Peshkov was shot from the ground from the machine guns, while he was parachute after the catapulting, the navigator Konstantin Murakhin was saved after 10 hours of searches. The Russian Mi-8 helicopter was also shot down by a search engineering operation: the Russian Marine died, the crew and the search team managed to save and evacuated. Murakhtin promised to avenge the murdered commander, and this mood supports the entire military elite of Russia. It is already clear: now any air incident with the participation of Russian and Turkish military can lead to a serious military conflict.

Exchange of explanations

After the incident, Ankara explained its actions by the fact that the Russian plane for 17 seconds violated the Turkish airspace and ignored repeated warnings. As evidence, the Turks presented the route of the shot down “drying”: in one place, Türkiye wedges in a narrow intestine into the territory of Syria, and the very tip of this intestine allegedly touched the Russian plane. Moreover, according to the head of the Turkish Foreign Ministry, Mevlyut Chavushol, the Turkish military dispatchers did not understand that the plane was Russian. The Pentagon representative Steve Warren said that Turkish warnings were recorded by American radio intelligence agents and that the Russian plane really flew into the Turkish sky, although it was already converged over Syria. The Russian General Staff, however, claims that the pilots neatly circled the Turkish appendix, introduced into Syria, and there were no warnings from the Turks.

Turkomanes are important for Erdogan not only by fighting with Assad - they actually share the territories occupied by Syrian and Iraqi Kurds, preventing them from uniting. And this complicates the possible creation of the state of Kurdistan, which can not allow Ankara.

The knocked -down car collapsed in Syria 4 km from the border, these lands are inhabited by Syrian Turkomanes (see certificate), which are equally opponents of both Bashara Assad and IG * . Turkoman militias and shot the pilot descending on a parachute, and then from the BGM-71 Tow anti-tank missile system developed in the United States, a Russian helicopter, which flew to the help of pilots.

A ball of interests

Türkiye has repeatedly complained about violations of its airspace by our aircraft, threatened to use force and once already shot down a Russian drone. In Moscow, these facts were recognized, but each time they explained: violations did not have evil intent, and complex weather conditions in the flight area were to blame for everything. Now, the head of Russia, Vladimir Putin, accused Turkey of applying a treacherous “hit in the back” and “Combination of terrorism”, read: in the activities of IG * . Judging by such a reaction, the Russian president proceeded from the fact that Türkiye is our like -minded person in assessing the situation in Syria and what happened was a complete surprise for him. And this means that Russia did not even consider Turkey as an independent regional player, believing that as soon as it enters the coalition led by the United States, we can limit ourselves to established interaction with the leader of this coalition.

Having intervened in the Civil War in Syria, Russia was guided by a very simplified understanding of what was happening there: there is, they say, the legitimate Syrian power represented by Bashar al -Assad, to which Russia came to the aid, and there are its opponents - the terrorist organization of IG * . The Americans, however, distinguished the nuances, rightly believing that the opponents of Assad are also a number of militarized structures, usually called a free Syrian army (SSA). At the same time, such structures (groups, formation - the essence does not change) are opposed to both the official Syrian authorities and the IG * . Moreover, it is they, and not at all IG * - the main opponents of Assad.

For the United States, Assad is as unacceptable as IG * , and, accordingly, forces that strike both, according to both Americans, should not be interfered. But the very first Russian airstrikes showed that it was these forces that are the main goal of Putin, whose task was to preserve Bashar al -Assad in power.

At first, the Americans reacted extremely nervously, saying that they were thinking about how to protect “their bitch sons” from Russian bombs. Poorly veiled threats sounded: to put air defense systems for detachments, according to which Russian airstrikes were mainly applied.

This was a certain share of cunning - primarily because they could be considered “their own” for Americans with a big stretch, and there was no confidence that the US technology put up by “their” would not turn against America itself. Therefore, instead of delivering the lands “Earth - Air” to the rebels, the United States entered into long negotiations with Russia.

As a result, Putin partially gave way to the political prospects of Bashar al -Assad himself, agreeing that he would leave after normalizing the situation in Syria, and the Americans not only abandoned the new military supplies of the SSA, but also agreed on measures that prevent potentially possible conflicts of Russian and American aircraft in the air.

The two coalitions, which declared their task to destroy the IG*, which began with an extremely intense dialogue, eventually turned out to be a kind of allies. Russia bombs its goals, using the Assad army as ground forces, the Hezbollah detachments and the Iranian Corps of the Islamic Revolution Guardians (Xir), the Americans are bombing their goals, using the Kurdish militia, much more predictable than the SSA as land support. In Russia, this was seen as a huge political breakthrough. True, Turkey in this scheme allocated the place of the statist. Namely, the Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan could not agree with this.

Erdogan game

Erdogan sees his country as an independent player in the region, for which, as for the United States, the overthrow of Assad's regime has turned into idefix. At the same time, the destruction of IG * for the Turks was not at all such an unconditional priority. They felt a much greater threat from the Kurds of military detachments, their traditional enemy - that over the years, only the crew during American support and became no longer just the militia, which the Americans relying in Syria and Iraq, but independent political force in Turkey itself, participating in parliamentary elections and crowding the ruling party of justice and development (PSR).

In Russia, it was as if they did not notice that Türkiye, being a participant in the pro -American coalition, regularly inflicts airstrikes on the Kurdish militia, that is, formally in its own coalition - ground contingent. And the United States, which was supposed to alert such a strange behavior of their ally, bypassed his attention.

In fact, Turkey had its own support on Earth - part of the groups included in the SSA, including Syrian Turkoman, whom Turkish instructors prepared on their territory.

Who are the Syrian Turkmans

Syrian Turkmans (or Turkoman, or Oguzes) are people related to the Turks, the third in number in Syria after Arabs and Kurds. They are considered the descendants of the Turks-Seljukov. The vast majority of Turkmans supported the uprising against the Assad regime and is now united in the so -called "Brigade of the Turkmen Mountain", which operates in border areas with Turkey in the Syrian province of Latakia and other northern regions of Syria. The group enjoys powerful support of Turkey and directly protects its interests.

On the morning of November 24, the Russian Su-24 bomber flew to the Northern Latakia areas, to strike at ... our purpose of this departure is called the position of IG * , but let's not forget that in the terminology of our General Staff IG * is called any units opposing Bashar Assad. In fact, they bombed, and not for the first time, the same detachments that interacted with the Turkish special services passed training in Turkey and received weapons from the Turks. These detachments fought for two fronts - against IG * and against Assad, but for the Russian military, only the second was significant. All Turkish protests against the invasion of their airspace are not associated with a formal violation of international law, but with the fact that blows were dealt on their people. Turkomanes are important for Erdogan not only by fighting with Assad - they actually share the territories occupied by Syrian and Iraqi Kurds, preventing them from uniting. And this complicates the possible creation of the state of Kurdistan, which can not allow Ankara.

Actually, the Turks on November 24 did what the Americans could not decide in early October. They did not supply the Air Defense and Anti -Asadi militia, but simply shot down the Russian plane themselves, using a formal occasion - violation of the air border.

This would not have happened if Russia initially spent at least a minimum forces to thoroughly sort out the intricacies of interests on the Syrian chessboard. Well, if Turkey considered it as an equivalent partner with whom it is necessary to seek a separate compromise, and not as an American “six” who has no own interests and tasks in the region.

New risks

The angry Russian reaction to the downed Su-24, as usual, was expressed in prohibitions-to the supply of Turkish meat products and the sale of tourist trips to Turkey, as before in Egypt. But if in the case of Egypt, the ban is explained by security problems at airports, then this time it looks exclusively as a punishment. What is the goal? Point economic pressure on Turkey? But Russia with its own hands cleared the site for Belarusian tour operators: now those who want to relax on Turkish or Egyptian beaches will buy vouchers in companies prescribed in Minsk. And how can this affect the military policy in Syria is unclear.

But behind the loud response “economic measures”, few heard the statement of the General Staff: from now on, Russian bombers will fly out on tasks accompanied by fighters. Now, in the Turkish -Syrian borderlands, full -fledged air battles are possible: Russia, defending its right to bomb whom it considers necessary, is ready to enter into a confrontation with the state - a member of NATO. Well, this already means that the situation around Syria is spinning through an unpredictable spiral: if a week ago many were afraid of the development of events according to the Afghan scenario - they got into someone else's conflict and got bogged down in it for years, it turns out that there is a risk of not new Afghanistan, but the third world.

* "Islamic State" (IGIL) - an organization banned in the Russian Federation