Russia and Ukraine

[Leonardo17]

3. Any deal between Turkey and Russia is doomed to fail as Putin and Erdogan will turn on each other and deals with central Asia will never pan out or replace Russia's need for the developed economies of the west . Putin has painted himself into a corner and these agreements are him flailing to get out.


4.The US is not trying to take over Europe and NATO is an Alliance, not a Hegemony. The US is powerful but it's not omniscient and only an America-centric arrogance would view it as such.

It was Erdogan blocking Finland and Sweden joining NATO. It was Erdogan who got what he wanted, remember? Had nothing to do with the US.
And now....its Erdogan with whom Putin/Russia is trying to make deals? How politically incompetent and without any clear-cut foreign policy does one have to be, to deal with the guy who was responsible for your biggest political defeat in recent history (and doubling the length of the border to your alleged biggest enemy)?

Thats why i mentioned Bismarck, or any other person not utterly incompetent in politics: If you have a massive nuclear arsenal, an alleged massive conventional force (second to none on the planet), massive, nearly unlimited natural resources to make an entire continent depend on you, have removed any opposition (= autocratic) in domestic politics, and you end up seeing a war of aggression as your last resort (for whatever reason to achieve whatever, politically or economically), then you have failed, completely and utterly failed.

Erdogan is an extreme right political figure who happens to rule the country with an iron fist since more than 20 years now. All that he did was to ban or limit alcohol consumption and night life in big cities, ban concert events for university students, promote his interpretation of religion by increasing the budget of the ministry of religion tenfold, promote the use of headscarves (thanks to him we now have police officers who look like the 4th concubine of Mehmet the Great and I really don’t know what I am supposed to do if I get arrested by one of them), build bridges on the bosphorus that are not even being used, build unused airports, demolish historical and very well built airports because “they have become obsolete”.
Example: our subway system in the Turkish capital (Ankara) was designed by left-wing governors in the mid 90’s. since his political party took Ankara in the late 90’s and left 2-4 years ago, this subway system was never extended. And now in 2022, in the rush hour, you simply cannot go anywhere if you don’t own a private car. The ancient governor of Ankara (who was from the same political party) reportedly built a dinosaur park with a price tag of 1 billion $ on it (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonderland_Eurasia).
 
   So he needs to do something to distract the public and be able to tell his masses “look, Finland and Sweden are on their knees begging me to do as they say” or  “Look, Gas will now flow from Russia, in four year times we will be richer than the UAE”
   This is a Silvio Bernuscolli like leader who is trying to convince “his” electoral by any possible mean.