How Turkey Outsmarted Russia Geopolitically

Erdogan’s long game turned Moscow’s victories into dependency and reshaped the balance of power from the Mediterranean to Central Asia.

All of my op-eds are freely available, thanks to the generous support of readers like you. Nonetheless, independent journalism takes time, research, and resources. If you find value in this piece or others I’ve published, please consider sharing it or becoming a paid subscriber. Your support, whether big or small, truly matters and helps keep this work going.

Want to buy me a coffee (or two)? Just click [here].

When Russia intervened in Syria in 2015, it was hailed as the moment Moscow returned to the global stage. The Kremlin claimed three objectives: preserve a friendly government, secure naval access to the Mediterranean through Tartus, and prevent Takfiri militancy from spreading into the Middle East, Caucasus, and Central Asia. For a while, it worked. Russian airpower stabilized the Syrian state, reshaped the battlefield, and gave Moscow leverage in a region dominated by the United States since the Cold War.

A decade later, that victory looks hollow. The same Moscow that once justified its intervention as a fight against jihadist extremism now legitimizes Abu Mohammed al-Julani — a man who rose from the ranks of al-Qaeda — as Syria’s self-appointed “president.” It’s a stunning reversal: the hunter of militants now recognizes one as head of state.

The contradiction could not be starker. Moscow’s official position on Ukraine rests on a central claim: that President Volodymyr Zelensky is illegitimate because he postponed elections under wartime conditions. Yet the Kremlin now receives Julani, who seized power through a coup and declared himself president by fiat. By doing so, Russia undermines its own rhetoric on sovereignty and legitimacy. If Zelensky’s democratic delay voids his mandate, how does Julani’s coup confer one?

For the Global South — the audience Moscow most hopes to influence — this is a telling moment. A state that positions itself as the defender of international law and sovereign legitimacy now embraces a warlord who rules without elections.

The handshake between Vladimir Putin and Julani in Moscow is less a sign of influence than a symbol of decline and proof that Russia’s official Syria policy has lost coherence. What began as an assertion of sovereignty has devolved into reactive accommodation.

And while Russia was busy holding on, Turkey was playing the long game.

Turkey’s Patience, Russia’s Overreach

Turkey’s rise in Syria didn’t happen overnight. It was the product of strategic patience and a slow and calculated maneuver beneath the chaos of war.

For decades, Ankara was NATO’s southeastern outpost, serving as a buffer between the Soviet Union and the Middle East. But under Erdogan, Turkey redefined its purpose. No longer content to serve as simply a Western gatekeeper, it aspired to become a pole of power in its own right and a regional hegemon capable of shaping events rather than reacting to them.

The Syrian conflict gave Erdogan the perfect platform. Under the guise of countering Kurdish militancy, Turkey built a sphere of influence across northern Syria. Each ceasefire, each “de-escalation zone” under the Astana process — nominally agreed with Russia and Iran — was repurposed to expand Turkish control.

Today, the Turkish military patrols deep into Syrian territory. The Turkish lira is widely circulated in local markets. Ankara-backed councils run schools, issue ID cards, and collect taxes. Turkish companies dominate reconstruction and trade. What began as a buffer zone has become a permanent protectorate.

This is not the return of empire in a sentimental sense, but in a structural one. Turkey’s policy combines economic integration, military entrenchment, and ideological soft power; a form of modern Ottomanism that extends through diplomacy as much as deployment. The presence of Turkish troops, intelligence networks, and contractors ensures that the Syrian state, under the new regime, will operate within Ankara’s strategic orbit.

Russia tolerated this encroachment because it saw Turkey as useful. A NATO member willing to mediate grain deals with Ukraine and keep trade channels open under sanctions. But strategic convenience often conceals dependency. Moscow’s tolerance has become reliance.

The Corridor That Changes Everything

Ankara’s ambitions don’t end in Syria. They extend northeast, through the South Caucasus.

In 2020, Turkey backed Azerbaijan’s war to reclaim Nagorno-Karabakh, reshaping the region’s power balance at Russia’s expense. By 2023, that campaign culminated in the mass displacement of 120,000 Armenians and the opening of a geopolitical artery Ankara has sought for decades: the Zangezur Corridor.

Once completed, the corridor will link Turkey directly to Azerbaijan and, through it, to the Turkic republics of Central Asia. This means uninterrupted overland access from the Mediterranean to the Caspian Sea, bypassing both Iran and Russia.

For Ankara, it’s nothing short of a revolution. It transforms Turkey from a regional actor into a Eurasian power. It diminishes Russia’s influence in the Caucasus, sidelines Iran from east–west trade, and unites the Turkic world under Turkish economic and cultural leadership from the Balkans to Xinjiang.

Moscow, once the arbiter of the Caucasus, now finds itself watching from the sidelines as its former “junior partner” redraws the map.

The Illusion of Rapprochement

The recent Putin-Julani meeting exposes another illusion.

Erdogan’s and Julani’s networks share ideological roots in the Muslim Brotherhood and Takfiri currents. Their temporary understanding with Moscow isn’t built on shared goals, but on tactical necessity. For these movements, Russia remains an occupier, a power to be tolerated now, expelled later.

The same cycle that shattered the Astana and Sochi agreements will repeat: pressure, escalation, and betrayal. Turkey and its Islamist allies will keep pushing until Moscow’s presence in Syria — particularly at Tartus — becomes untenable.

That’s the real game: Russia’s naval foothold in the Mediterranean, its only warm-water port outside the Black Sea, is the ultimate prize. Ankara and its proxies will never accept a permanent Russian presence there.

For now, they wait. But once Ankara consolidates control from northern Syria through the Caucasus to Central Asia, pressure on Moscow to withdraw from Tartus will intensify.

What looks like cooperation today is merely an intermission.

Turkey’s Coherence vs. Russia’s Contradictions

Turkey’s advantage lies in coherence. Its foreign policy aligns military power, economic reach, and ideological soft power toward a single goal: regional primacy. Erdogan uses NATO membership as leverage, Islamist networks as influence tools, and trade diplomacy as cover for expansion.

Russia, by contrast, is fragmented and diplomatically inconsistent. Moscow condemns US-backed coups while recognizing one in Damascus. It lectures the world about sovereignty while legitimizing an unelected warlord.

Such contradictions weaken not only Russia’s position in Syria but also its credibility across the Global South. Countries that once saw Moscow as a counterbalance to Western intervention now see another power that cannot defend its allies or sustain its own victories.

The End of Illusions

In the end, the supposed Russian resurgence in the Middle East was a mirage.
Moscow proved it could intervene, but not dominate; it could bomb, but not rebuild.

Turkey, on the other hand, mastered modern geopolitics: projection through limited force, proxy governance, and economic penetration. It didn’t challenge the West head-on; it exploited the vacuum left by Western fatigue and Russian rigidity.

The result is a quiet but irreversible shift: the eastern Mediterranean and the Caucasus are no longer Russia’s strategic backyard. They’re Ankara’s.

Russia’s recognition of Julani’s self-proclaimed presidency signals that Moscow’s Syria strategy — once the centerpiece of its Middle East resurgence — has reached its endpoint. What began as an assertion of independence from Western hegemony has devolved into a pattern of reactive accommodation.

The handshake in Moscow between Putin and Julani will be remembered as the moment when the promise of a multipolar order began to lose its substance, one pragmatic compromise at a time.

—Kevork Almassian is a Syrian geopolitical analyst and the founder of Syriana Analysis.