Like the broken clock, they can't be wrong at all times can they?
It certainly is true unless it is a digital clock and the screen with LEDS is completely blank and showing no time at all.
He has to take concrete and continuous action to reform Turkeys former empire before you can accuse him of doing that... and he does not seem to be doing that.
He is very much acting like the US... except he is only interfering in his region... making money on cheap stolen oil in Syria and supporting people fighting a neighbouring regime most of HATO want gone, making money in the ashes that is Libya, and wanting ownership of suspected underwater oil and gas reserves... western countries do this sort of thing all the time... but the west only says there are imperial ambitions when Erdogan does it... suspicious... because if he really wanted to expand his empire the first step could be to offer autonomy within Turkey for Turkish Kurds but also Syrian Kurds and take over from the US special forces in stealing Syrian oil... a relatively quick easy way to expand his territory... and then Iraqi and Iranian Kurds maybe could join and add their land to the pot...
To be fair though, while Putin might have the ambition to set about rejoining Russia's territories he also has the foresight to realize that doing so would neither be very productive for his country considering the conditions on which these territories would agree to rejoin under, as well as the reaction it would provoke from the West.
Where does that come from?
The west has already accused Putin of annexing the Crimea... so why not annex South Ossetia and Abkhazia... why not annex all of Georgia... and Azerbaijan and Armenia and Nagorny Kharabakh? Belarus and at least half the Ukraine with all of its coastline to solve the the Transnistria problem too.
If he was the Imperial warlord the west pretends he is he would have done at least some of those.... and the reality is that he has done none of them.
Crimea voted to join the Russian federation... Russia accepted their request to join... no annexation... like say the Golan Heights in Syria, or Guam, or the Marshall Islands in the Pacific...
The fact is that Russia is not putting any pressure on any country to join the Russian federation.... a huge irony for HATO countries to suggest they are because HATO has run a long campaign trying to get small non aligned countries on Russian borders to join them so they can be safe from big bad Russia...
Even more ironic considering of these small countries more have died in Afghanistan fighting for HATO than Russia has killed in the last few years... except those going to Syria or Chechnia specifically to fight Russians.
[quoteIt took nazis deposing the lawful government in Kiev and Crimea becoming under threat from nazi hordes before Russia intervened covertly in Ukraine. That's a very high threshold for Russia to bear and illustrates just how dire the situation even has to be for the option to intervene was even considered.[/quote]
Not just Kiev murdering their own people, but also HATO countries and the US funding the coup in the first place and openly funding and training the Kiev thugs to continue to murder their own people... I think the covert support Russia has given was probably off the books via volunteers... I think it should be more solid and overt to prevent the sort of situations happening now where Kiev thinks it can flout the Minsk agreements and solve the problem with a military invasion.
While the west screams at Russia about the Minsk Agreements it is Kiev that is not following them... Russia is not a party to the agreements, it is just an interested party that shares a border with the victims of violence coming from Kiev.
In contrast Turkey has on its initiative, jumped at any excuse it could get to intervene in its neighbours affairs.
They are in HATO.... it is to be expected.
It didn't need to support the attempted Syrian regime change - it had a working agreement with Damascus that kept the PKK in check.
Very much agree, but it is part of HATO and had all the important parts of HATO (ie US, UK, France, Germany) screaming for Assad to go and pushing funds into the region.... some of which was going to Kurds who thought this might be their best opportunity to have their own country... he could hardly ignore that, plus with all that chaos... all that oil being pumped and sold for chump change.... how could he ignore that?
Both sides also had a vested interest in keeping their backyard stable given the turmoils in neighbouring Iraq. But what did Turkey do?
Stability ended when the west funded a colour revolution and broke Syria into pieces... Erdogan did what he did at the time... what he thought was best for Turkey.... including shooting down a Russian plane which he claimed personal responsibility for but didn't get the hugs and pats on the back he was expecting from his HATO allies, and then rather harsh sanctions and responses from Russia made him reconsider his position... the food export ban to Russia didn't apply to Turkey because the Turks are not part of the EU, so Russia banning stuff from Turkey and stopping Russian tourists going there was a blow that certainly made him re-evaluate who was friend and who was foe.
The US refusing to sell Patriot to him led to him ordering and buying a much cheaper but also much more capable system from Russia... not a huge surprise after the US attempted to do to him what they had been trying to do in Syria to Assad, or what they did to Saddam and Gaddafi...
The Russians were certainly not friends, but there was no stab in the back from them, and seemed to live up to agreements in the region even with hostile parties.
In fact the biggest violator of agreements with Russia was Israel, which has led to Syria probably having a stronger IADS than any other country in the region.
The Turks have never shown any hint of gratitude towards any action the Russians have done that was to their benefit. Why would you expect they'd change their attitude in the future?
They bought S-400s. Most of HATO is now cutting them off from their technology... the Ukraine would not be able to replace that... not even close... in fact in many areas Turkey probably have better technology in some areas than the Orcs... the Turks are not idiots, but they are missing a few key technologies that previously they bought from their friends and never bothered to master themselves... a crime most countries are guilty of.
In my opinion there's not much sense in trying to tug Turkey from NATO either. They know the only reason they even have the latitude to operate on their own is due entirely to NATO covering for them. Otherwise they'd long be steamrolled by Russia and the concert of neighbors that have an ax to grind against them. Its a nice thought to have, but the Turks would never make it that easy for you, as much as they could stomach being stripped of what little fiefdom they are trying to establish.
Russia does not need to drag Turkey... Russia just needs to trade like a normal country and fill the gaps being created by HATO withdrawing their technology, and HATO will likely push Turkey away like the US essentially forced the EU to push Russia to China and elsewhere.
Turkey doesn't need HATO, Russia is not going to invade and occupy Turkey, and HATO is all about containing and controlling Russia.
HATO needs Turkey because of its proximity to Russia and its control of the Black Sea, but Turkey does not need HATO.
Turkey is not good enough to be in the EU, but they are happy for it to be front line cannon fodder for the war against the Soviets and the Russians...
If entering into a Russian-led alliance or economic pact, they'd make just as much trouble for Russia as they would for NATO.
Russia does not need a new Warsaw Pact... without HATO pulling their strings they can just trade with Russia and any other country they please... if they are doing something that Russia does not like... well make an agreement with them so both sides can be happy.
Because Russia is weak against an entire alliance, but stronger than any single one of those states individually and can always leverage ties with a friendly Egypt, a friendly Syria, etc... if the Turks decide to make problems for Russia.
Agree.... and when it is an alliance that is dictated to by Brussels, which essentially does as it is told from Washington, sometimes some of those countries in that alliance end up doing things against their own interests... like rejecting Russian Vaccines while waiting for western vaccines to be delivered.
Remember when the west said Russia didn't have the capacity to produce enough vaccines and that the west will make their own for everyone and there wont be enough Sputnik to go around... ironic really.
Russia can work with Turkey on certain issues. But Russia is also free to work with Egypt or Iran on others. Russia has its own relations with every state, the main thing is that these states don't answer to Washington and impose sanctions on Russia; that's already something Russia benefits from. They don't have to answer to Russia.
And that will be an advantage for Turkey if they leave HATO and start talking with neighbours and just trading without worrying about what Brussels or Washington think.
This business with NATO cannot last as the US is now calling the bluff and imposing serious sanctions against Ankara.
Read an article on RT this morning that Biden has acknowledged the Armenian Genocide...
Kicking them out of the F-35 programme was a bonus, those 100 planes would have been dogs... expensive dogs that drained their budgets for very little return...
This is actually going to be good for Turkey in the long run I think.