With Donald Trump becoming the president of the United States and the decline of the Western alliance, it wasn’t unexpected that the power vacuum would start occurring in multiple regions. Previously, it was short-sighted by Russia to spread as much chaos as possible in vulnerable regions, in order to accelerate the decrease of the Western influence in these regions. What policy-makers in Russia did not understand is that they need the West more than the West need these fragile regions like Syria, the Caucasus, Northern Africa. The problem with all these regions is, in the case of the power-vacuum, that there are multiple local, small, and regional players, trying to fill the void, the players on which every great power need to count. All of these critical factors are happening in Syria, and even more importantly for Russia, in the Caucasus.

It seems Russia didn’t count on these factors, one of which turns to be Turkey. It is surprising how Russia, while unleashing its intervention in Syria, didn’t fully evaluate regional powers like Turkey, Israel, and Iran, the major regional powers which could give Russia additional headache in the future, everyone in a different way. If we put aside moral baggage around Assad and look at the things purely operationally, the question arises: Was it Assad worth of saving? Wouldn’t it be more convenient if Russia let him down the drain?

Russia never fully evaluate the Turkish interest in Syria and the sheer proximity in the matter. For Russia, Syria is just another theatre in the geopolitical projection. For Turkey, Syria, especially Northern Syria, to some extent represents the extension of the national tissue, like the Donbas for Russia. After the downing of the plane in 2015, Russia should understand this better, but it didn’t.

But then, everything changed in 2016, after the failed coup attempt against Erdogan in Turkey. Erdogan wasn’t happy regarding the reaction coming from the West and the tone coming after the crackdown. He decided to diverge from the West and become open to deals with Russia. Russia saw this as an opportunity to turn the tide of the war but without the intention to respect agreements, squeezing Turkey’s area of control with one offensive after another. The conflict culminated in February this year, after Russia bomb the Turkish troops, killing over 30 Turkish soldiers.

After turbulent Turkish diplomacy and multiple Erdogan’s probings ending in failure, it seems like Erdogan decided to bite big and maybe turn the tables between the Turkish-Russian relations. He struck in the Caucasus! The most sensitive region for Russia, after Eastern Europe. This region is a matter of Russian national security, identity, history. I won’t talk about how this Erdogan’s move seems unwise, because that’s self-explanatory, the real question is how far Erdogan is ready to go. Unlike in Eastern Europe, in this region, Russia always had undisputed supremacy. After the war in the nineties, Russia manage to somehow keep the peace between these two countries, but with the entrance of Turkey, this ended, giving the Azerbaijanis the edge over the Armenians. This doesn’t look good. If Russia barely and slowly accepting the fact that it lost Ukraine, facing an incomparably stronger adversary than Turkey, it definitely won’t allow the Turkish entrenchment in the region. Turkey is not in the same tier as Russia, something which should be clear to Erdogan.

So how this conflict is going to end? Without Ukraine, Russia probably wouldn’t enter Syria, and without Syria, Turkey probably wouldn’t enter the Caucasus. If Russia stays as a key factor who is mediating the future in the Caucasus, and Erdogan gives up in one way or another after another failed probing, everything pretty much could end where it started. Turkey could get another green light against the Kurds in Syria, or another guarantee for the Greater Idlib. But if Erdogan stays firmly on the course of the long term entrenchment, the war between Russia and Turkey seems inevitable.