As Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan lifted a veto this week on Sweden joining Nato, Russian hardliners, stung by a flurry of recent Turkish gestures of support for Ukraine, demanded that Türkiye be designated an “unfriendly” country.
The pro-Western moves by Türkiye, including Erdogan’s warm welcome of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky in Istanbul on Friday, led to speculation that Türkiye was pivoting to restore warmer relations with Europe and the US after several years of close cooperation with Moscow.
In Russia, where President Vladimir Putin’s good relationship with Erdogan is valuable geopolitical currency, the sense that Erdogan may be flipping to a closer, more cooperative relationship with Western leaders seemed to provoke almost as much anxiety as the idea of Sweden joining Nato, raising questions about whether Russia’s war has undermined one of Moscow’s most
