- June 7, 2026
- 5:51 pm
- Middle East
Turkey changes the balance: why it matters not only for Ukraine
Turkey is increasingly moving away from its previous complex game with Moscow and is helping Ukraine establish itself where Russia recently felt almost unchallenged. This is not only about diplomacy but also about the Middle East — a region directly important for Israel, the security of the Eastern Mediterranean, and the entire system of regional alliances.
The occasion for a new discussion was a publication in The New York Times, where researcher Gönül Tol described the breakdown of the previous Turkish-Russian connection and the growth of Ukraine’s role with Ankara’s support.
The essence of this story is simple but painful for the Kremlin: Erdogan no longer looks like Putin’s junior partner.
Now it is Turkey that is helping Volodymyr Zelensky open doors in a region where Moscow has long built influence through Syria, weapons, energy, and personal agreements with authoritarian regimes.
From Syria to Ukraine: how the Ankara-Moscow alliance began to crack
About ten years ago, the war in Syria created a strange, almost paradoxical partnership between Turkey and Russia. Moscow was saving Bashar al-Assad’s regime, supporting it with aviation, military advisors, and political cover.
Ankara, on the contrary, bet on Assad’s opponents.
On paper, this should have led to a direct confrontation. But Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan found a formula: to compete, to pressure each other, but not to break relations completely. For Moscow, this was convenient because Turkey opened up space for maneuver near NATO. For Erdogan, it also worked — especially against the backdrop of strained relations with the West.
But Russia’s war against Ukraine changed this construction.
After February 24, 2022, Putin found himself much more dependent on those countries that did not join Western sanctions. Turkey refused to completely close economic and diplomatic channels for Moscow but at the same time did not refuse Ukraine.
This is where a new Turkish logic appeared: to talk with Russia but to strengthen Kyiv.
Why the fall of Russia’s influence in Syria became a turning point
The real blow to Russia’s position in the Middle East, according to this logic, occurred after the fall of Assad’s regime at the end of 2024. For Moscow, this was not just a Syrian crisis but a symbolic defeat of its entire Middle Eastern strategy.
For years, Russia showcased Syria as proof of its strength: unlike the West, Moscow does not abandon allies.
But when the Kremlin’s resources were drawn into the war against Ukraine, the ability to protect old regimes sharply weakened. Syria became for Russia not a stronghold of power but a reminder that the war in Ukraine is consuming its foreign policy capabilities.
Turkey, on the contrary, emerged from this crisis significantly more confident.
For Israel, this turn has a separate significance. The Middle East remembers well who can maintain influence and who only imitates global power. When Russian presence weakens, other players come to the fore — Turkey, Ukraine, Gulf countries, as well as new temporary coalitions on security, energy, and military technologies.
And here Ukraine no longer looks like just a country asking for help.
It increasingly acts as a state that has accumulated real combat experience against the Russian army, and this experience becomes a valuable export resource.
Zelensky in Syria: a gesture Moscow could not ignore
Particularly indicative was Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit to Syria, which, according to a retelling of the publication, took place on a Turkish government plane.
This is not just a transportation detail.
When the President of Ukraine arrives in the region with Turkish logistical support, it means that Ankara is effectively helping Kyiv to enter the political scene where Russia used to consider itself one of the main forces.
Zelensky met with Syrian transitional leader Ahmed al-Sharaa and discussed cooperation in security and energy. For Kyiv, this is a chance to establish itself in the region not only through requests for support but by offering specific expertise.
Ukraine offers what it has gained at a very high cost: experience in drone warfare, countering the Russian army, air defense work, and adapting military production under constant strikes.
This is why for Moscow, this story looks like a double humiliation.
First, Russia could not maintain the previous order in Syria. Then Ukraine, against which the Kremlin launched a full-scale war, began to occupy diplomatic and military-technological space in the Middle Eastern direction.
Ukraine, Iran, and Gulf countries: a new security line
A separate layer of this story is connected with Iran.
For Israel, this is a particularly sensitive topic because Iranian drones, missiles, and proxy networks have long been part of the regional threat. For Ukraine, Iran is also not an abstract player: it is Iranian strike drones that have become one of the tools of Russia’s war against Ukrainian cities, energy, and civilian infrastructure.
When Iran attacks neighbors with kamikaze drones, Gulf countries see not just a regional conflict.
They see weapons and tactics that Ukraine has already studied in combat conditions.
Therefore, sending Ukrainian teams and air defense specialists to Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE looks not like a gesture of symbolic solidarity but as a practical security deal. Kyiv can provide what the region’s countries need now: experience in countering threats emanating from the Iranian military school and its technological connections.
In this context, Nikk.Agency — Israel News | Nikk.Agency views the Ukrainian-Turkish rapprochement not as a separate diplomatic episode but as part of a broader restructuring of the Middle East. For the Israeli audience, the conflict between Kyiv and Moscow is not the only important aspect, but also how the war in Ukraine changes the balance around Iran, Syria, Turkey, and the Gulf countries.
What Putin loses
The main problem for Putin in this story is not one visit by Zelensky and not one publication in The New York Times.
The problem is deeper: Russia is gradually losing the status of a power that can simultaneously pressure Europe, hold positions in Syria, bargain with Turkey, intimidate NATO, and remain the main mediator in the Middle East.
This model is breaking.
The war against Ukraine has demanded too many resources, political attention, and military equipment from Moscow. The longer it continues, the fewer opportunities the Kremlin has to maintain its previous global stance.
Erdogan sees this.
This is why Turkish policy is becoming tougher and more pragmatic. Ankara is not necessarily turning into a direct ally of Kyiv in the Western sense. But it is increasingly using the Ukrainian factor against Russian weakness.
For Ukraine, this is a window of opportunity.
For Russia, it is yet another proof of strategic failure.
And for Israel — a signal that the Middle East is entering a new phase, where Ukrainian experience in the war against Russia can become part of regional security, especially against the backdrop of threats from Iran and its allies.
Why this is a blow specifically to the Kremlin’s myth
For years, Putin built the image of a leader who supposedly knows how to return Russia to the ranks of the world’s centers of power. Syria was part of this image. Connections with Iran, Turkey, and authoritarian regimes were also part of this construction.
But now it is clear that this construction is not monolithic.
Turkey does not break all bridges with Moscow, but it no longer plays by the old scheme where the Kremlin dictated the pace. Ukraine, which Putin wanted to deprive of subjectivity, is entering new platforms and offering regions not slogans but military experience, technologies, and political resilience.
This is the main symbolic blow.
Erdogan is not just helping Zelensky. He shows that Russian influence can be bypassed, displaced, and replaced with other connections. For the Kremlin, this indeed resembles a poke in the eye — not emotionally, but strategically.