Putin seeks the support of Russia’s satellite countries and turns to Erdogan for help

The Russian President, Vladimir Putinhas started a round of contacts to try to find a way out of the crisis opened by the leader of the Wagner group, Yevgeny Prigozhin. After his address to the country in which he described the rebellion of the group of mercenaries as a “stab in the back”, he picked up the phone to seek the support of some allied countries, including Turkey.

According to sources from the Turkish Presidency, quoted by the Reuters agency, the president Recep Tayyip Erdogan he got on the other side of the line with Putin. From the conversation it has emerged that the Turkish leader showed him his willingness to “offer your help to find a peaceful solution to the situation”. Erdogan urged his Russian colleague to “act with common sense”.

The answer is ambiguous enough to wait for the development of events before taking sides. But the simple fact that Ankara acknowledges that there have been talks and that his country is involved in the open conflict in Moscow is relevant enough.

[“¿El Ejército obedecerá a Putin o a Wagner?”: la clave del motín para un excomandante de EEUU]

Relations between the two countries have not been exactly idyllic in the recent past. During the first years of the war in Syria, Türkiye and Russia defended conflicting interests. A tension that was aggravated in 2016 with the assassination of the Russian ambassador in Ankara, Andrei Karlovwho was shot in an art gallery.

In recent years, however, Erdogan and Putin have been getting closer. Türkiye assumed that Bashar al Assad he had won the war in Syria and, although the Turkish president defends the territorial integrity of Ukraine, he has staged several attempts to act as a mediator between Moscow and kyiv. Turkey is the most important power involved in the crisis that has opened in Russia and also strengthens its role as a first-order geostrategic actor.

Iran and Russia satellites

Erdogan was not the only one to receive a call from the Kremlin this Saturday. putin is in contact with Iranian authorities, who have also applied as mediators in recent years in different conflicts in which Russia has been involved. The official Iranian media assure that his government supports “the rule of law” in Moscow, which translates into support for Vladimir Putin’s Executive.

Belarus, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan They have also shown their support for the Russian president, who has spoken with their respective leaders. All of these countries, former members of the Soviet Union, are controlled by pro-Moscow governments and are traditional allies of Putin.

After its isolationism with the West and its close relationship with china, which has also never shown resounding support for Russia after the war unleashed in Ukraine, these are the supports that the head of the Kremlin can count on right now. According to international analysts, his future right now would be rather in the hands of the designs of his closest military.

[Por qué Rostov es un importante bastión para Rusia y ha sido atacada por el Grupo Wagner]

Expectation in the West

In Ukraine, they celebrate the open water route in Moscow and hope that the internal conflict can favor their interests to regain control in different areas of the country, as expressed by the Volodymir Zelensky.

Meanwhile, the United States Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, assured that his country is “in constant coordination with the rest of the allies to assess the situation.” Washington has been Ukraine’s main arms supplier since the war began.

From the European Union, the rest of the countries also recognize that they are closely monitoring the situation, waiting for Putin to emerge from the open conflict from within.