The tsar and sultan quarrel in Syria, who wins?
From the very beginning of the Syrian civil war in 2011, debates have raged over which states can be counted among its winners and which its losers. With the fall of Idlib and much of Latakia province in the spring of 2015 to rebel militias backed by Ankara, predictions were made of impending triumph for a Turkish government that seemed to be in a position to dictate terms to the Syrian regime. The Russian intervention to save President Bashar Assad in response seemed to have turned the tide with the fall of rebel-held Aleppo in December 2016. To the great anxiety of Ukrainians as well as other governments fending off the Kremlin, in the months that followed many in the West went on to declare Russian President Vladimir Putin the triumphant victor of a conflict that seemed to have turned completely to Turkey’s disadvantage.
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