How Turkey is squeezing Russia out of Transcaucasia and Central Asia

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One of the main and at the same time dangerous features of modern Russian foreign policy is its situationality and reflexivity. We begin to extinguish the fire when both the hut and the barn are already burning. As a natural result, Turkey has freely settled in our "backyard", on the contrary, for more than three decades it has been pursuing a systemic neo-colonial policy in the territory of the former USSR.

Transcaucasia


Everyone knows very well that Ankara took part in the second Nagorno-Karabakh war on the side of Baku. The Turkish military helped Azerbaijani colleagues with rearmament, training, organization and planning of military operations. As a result, the Armenian side was defeated in just a month and a half of the war. Could things have gone differently if Russia had actively supported its CSTO ally?



Maybe, maybe not. The fact is that the Kremlin, in the style of the Belarusian Old Man, wanted to sit on two chairs at the same time, maintaining good relations with both Armenia and Azerbaijan. As a great "geopolitical victory", he was recorded that Russian peacekeepers were deployed on the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, however, for a period of only 5 years and without an international UN mandate. This means that our motorized rifles are there only with the permission of official Baku and are completely dependent on its goodwill for their supply.

The main goal of the second Nagorno-Karabakh war was to inflict a military defeat on Yerevan and force the opening of a land transport corridor in the south of Armenia, which should connect Turkey and Azerbaijan on land, giving Ankara access to the Caspian Sea and further to Central Asia. Due to the obstinate position of Yerevan, the implementation of this geopolitical project stalled, but just a couple of weeks ago, in Prague, with the mediation of France, a meeting was held between representatives of Armenia and Azerbaijan, who mutually recognized each other's territorial integrity as of 1991. The name "Nagorno-Karabakh" or "Artsakh" does not appear in the text of the agreement, but a fundamental breakthrough has already occurred.

Now the angry Armenian patriots expect the final “drain” of the unrecognized republic and reconciliation with Baku from the “soros” Pashinyan. And not in vain. This is exactly what it's all about. Turkey and Azerbaijan in return will offer security guarantees to Armenia and its participation in joint infrastructure projects. And then further - how it goes. The presence of Russian peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh will then be recognized as inappropriate, and then our military base in Gyumri. Armenia will eventually withdraw from the CSTO, which is being spoken about almost without hesitation today.

So, almost without noise and dust, Russia is being squeezed out of the Transcaucasus, where a powerful regional alliance of Turkey and Azerbaijan is being formed. By the way, Baku supplies weapons for the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. However, the ambitions of the "sultan" Erdogan are not limited to Transcaucasia.

Great Turan


Unlike some other geopoliticians, the “sultan” systematically and consistently promotes the interests of his country, building a new supranational integration project called “Great Turan” in Central Asia. It should be noted that work in this direction began even before President Erdogan came to power, immediately after the collapse of the USSR.

The Russian leadership, in particular, would do well to learn how Turkey began to spread its influence in the format of “soft power”. Ankara offered the former Soviet Central Asian republics the myth of some kind of Turkic unity, naturally, under the auspices of Turkey, the successor of the Sublime Porte. At first, independent regional "elites" resisted this expansionary process. They did not like being called "Kazakh Turks" or "Azerbaijani Turks", but time has done its job. For years, such pro-Turkish organizations as the Turkic Academy of Sciences, the Turkic Parliamentary Assembly, TURKSOY (International Organization of Turkic Culture), TIKA (Agency for Cooperation and Communication), and many others have been working, carefully accustoming the Turkic peoples of Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, which they are actually "almost" Turks. Local elites have been given the opportunity to study in Turkey, which is truly a unique fusion of Europe and Asia, Western democratic institutions and Islam, secular freedoms and ancient traditions.

It got to the point that even Turkmenistan, which had a neutral status in principle, became an observer in the Turkic Council and is considering the possibility of joining the organization in some special status. Ankara's latest initiative is the creation of a single alphabet for all Turkic-speaking countries in the post-Soviet space.

In fact, all this is very disturbing. While the Russian leadership was solving its problems and was more preoccupied with the construction of gas and oil pipelines, a vacuum formed in the Transcaucasus and Central Asia, which an ambitious Turkey began to fill. In a good way, it is almost impossible to expel her from our “backyard”. It is depressing that instead of a consistent policy of weakening its historical rival and rival in the region, the Kremlin itself is strengthening it even more economically by building nuclear power plants and new gas pipelines at the expense of the federal budget. How wise and far-sighted this is, we will see very soon.
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  1. 0
    24 October 2022 19: 31
    It is difficult for Russia to fight Turkey for influence in the Caucasus and the SA, as they say, head-on. But we must not forget that there are other influential players there. In the Caucasus, this is Iran, in the SA, China. And these countries are not at all enthusiastic about Turkey's geopolitical efforts, rightly seeing it as a competitor. Russia has a unique chance to become a "smart monkey" watching the fight between two tigers, waiting in the wings)
    1. 0
      25 October 2022 15: 45
      In the 21st century, the world began to be built along national lines - the Great Turan and so on. Russia needs its own unifying idea and expansion - it needs a "Slavonic world". The map of the alignment of countries will become wider than the Great Turan, only a unifier is needed (it seems like R. Erdogan), today's GDP does not pull, it has run out of steam, it is surrounded by a more faded and cosmopolitan liberal corrupt environment, their main idea is "My Pocket" ... ....
  2. -2
    24 October 2022 20: 18
    Yes, it’s not a pity, let the Turks take and feed them!
    1. The comment was deleted.
    2. 0
      26 October 2022 11: 56
      Who could you feed? Are you disabled
  3. The comment was deleted.
  4. 0
    24 October 2022 21: 57
    The territories of the Caucasus and Central Asia are the territory of the former USSR, i.e. Russia. In the 1990s, a coup d'etat took place in the USSR, this is a criminal offense without a statute of limitations. The power in Russia will change and all the new-found states formed by the separatists on the territories of the former Soviet republics of the USSR will disappear.
    1. The comment was deleted.
  5. 0
    24 October 2022 22: 10





    But Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan - LONG before Pashinyan and since the beginning of the XNUMXs - sold Azerbaijan (not a CSTO MEMBER ... by the way) - OFFENSIVE (!) Weapons worth many billions of dollars ... And these weapons killed the Armenians of Karabakh and Armenia itself (an ally of the Russian Federation, Belarus and Kazakhstan in the CSTO ... by the way ...). And how should this UNFRIENDLY step of the CSTO MEMBERS be perceived and understood in Armenia??? Is the arms trade a business or a clean water policy ???
    1. 0
      26 October 2022 12: 02
      Armenian lawyer - who does Russia help little there? Everything is lent to you. And Azerbaijan pays in foreign currency.
      Armenia became the world's first importer of Iskander missile systems, and also received unique Su-30SM fighters, advanced TOR-M2KM and Osa-AK anti-aircraft missile systems, TOS-1A Solntsepek heavy flamethrower systems, powerful jet systems multiple rocket launchers (MLRS) "Smerch", anti-tank guided missiles 9M113M, RPG-26 grenade launchers, Dragunov sniper rifles, armored vehicles "Tiger", ground-based electronic intelligence systems "Avtobaza-M", engineering and communications equipment. Armenia is successfully implementing with Russian help a seven-year program to modernize the armed forces. Several Russian arms loans totaling $300 million allowed Yerevan to increase defense spending to $600 million. As part of the strategic partnership, Moscow provides Yerevan with profitable loans worth hundreds of millions of dollars and supplies weapons at domestic Russian prices. Thus, in the fall of 2015, the parties agreed to provide a $200 million military loan to Armenia. Russia completed deliveries under this agreement in July 2018.

      In accordance with the intergovernmental agreement signed on October 24, 2017, the Russian Federation provided Yerevan with another $100 million state export loan to finance the supply of military products.

      Moreover, the Armenian side can use credit funds to finance up to 90% of the cost of each contract in 2018-2022 (comfortable conditions). The loan repayment period is 15 years, more precisely from 2023 to 2037 (at a symbolic 3% per annum). Yerevan is in the top three recipients of Moscow's military aid
  6. 0
    25 October 2022 09: 20
    Explain to me why our guarantor decided to turn Turkey into a gas hub??? Isn't it clear that the Turkish snake is working against Russia? Or again, the Motherland is nothing, money is everything???
    1. The comment was deleted.
    2. -1
      26 October 2022 12: 03
      Russia will die without Turkey
  7. +1
    25 October 2022 22: 20
    Lord....Yes, Russia needs to take care of itself. By yourself, you know.
    Then, having such a resource base, one would not have to look for goods of one's own production in shopping centers.
    Respect is the foundation of good relationships. And what respect can there be for you, if basically you can only dig with a shovel and exploit the legacy of the Union. The first time I visited Japan was 15 years ago, South Korea 12, and China about 10 years ago.
    How are we different from them? No, not by the cut of the eyes, not by the color of the skin, but by the fact that when you drive along the roads there, factories float by. And we have shopping malls.
    You need to earn respect, and not stand on the sidelines of life with a carrot, saying, love me for who we are. It doesn't work like that here.