WPR (World Politics Review) Briefing Syria Turkey and Russia Will Remain ‘Frenemies’ in Syria Giorgio Cafiero Mar 25, 2025March 25, 2025

WPR (World Politics Review)

Briefing Syria

Turkey and Russia Will Remain ‘Frenemies’ in Syria

Giorgio Cafiero

Mar 25, 2025March 25, 2025

Turkey and Russia Will Remain ‘Frenemies’ in Syria

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin attend a joint press conference, in Sochi, Russia, Sept. 4, 2023 (Sipa photo by Dmitry Azarov via AP Images).

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From the start of Syria’s civil war, Turkey and Russia found their interests in the country diverging, with Ankara supporting the armed rebels seeking to overthrow the regime of former President Bashar al-Assad and Moscow serving as one of Assad’s principal backers. Tensions between them were further amplified after Russia’s intensified intervention on Assad’s behalf in September 2015.

The two sides ultimately reached a working arrangement, setting up diplomatic mechanisms to manage their differences and tamp down the fighting until late last year, when a rebel offensive tacitly approved by Ankara toppled Assad on Dec. 8.

Having supported anti-Assad groups throughout the civil war, Turkey has recently emerged as the “big winner” in Syria. By contrast, Russia’s influence in Syria has drastically declined with interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, now in power.

As a result, Syria will remain a source of tension in Turkish-Russian relations. Given Ankara’s role in Assad’s ouster, the fall of Syria’s regime further reinforced Moscow’s view of Turkey as an opportunistic player able and willing to severely undermine Russian interests. But whether as “cooperative rivals” or “adversarial collaborators,” Ankara and Moscow are likely to continue engaging with each other on the Syrian file and avoid hostilities.

Frenemies in Syria

The two countries and their predecessor empires have centuries of experience both confronting and cooperating with each other. The Ottoman Empire fought a dozen wars with the Russian Empire between the 16th and 20th centuries. Throughout the Cold War, Turkey—a founding NATO member whose leadership was staunchly anti-communist—allied with the West against the Soviet Union. Yet, throughout their shared history, both sides also understood the importance of co-existing as Black Sea neighbors and pursuing economic ties when possible.

That history prepared them well for managing their tensions during the Syrian conflict. Those tensions reached their zenith in November 2015, when Turkey shot down a Russian warplane that had briefly entered Turkish airspace along the Turkish-Syrian border. Yet, they subsequently reset relations after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government came to the defense of his Turkish counterpart, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in the aftermath of a failed coup targeting Erdogan in July 2016. By contrast, that episode heightened tensions between Ankara and its traditional NATO allies.

By 2016-2017, Turkey had essentially come to terms with Russia’s intensified military intervention in Syria, which helped the Assad regime regain control of much of the country. For all intents and purposes, Ankara gave up on regime change and focused its energy on securing the Turkish-Syrian border and combating the YPG, a militia that Ankara views as the Syrian offshoot of the Turkish Kurdish PKK, which has been fighting a decadeslong insurgency against Turkey.

Turkey and Russia have, to their credit, a record of successfully compartmentalizing issues, finding ways to cooperate on certain files despite major sources of tension in other areas of the relationship.

From that point onward, Turkey, Russia and Iran—another of Assad’s backers—sought to manage the Syrian crisis via the Astana Process, a forum through which they worked to advance common interests in Syria, such as preserving the country’s territorial integrity, defeating extremist groups such as the Islamic State and seeking a political solution to the conflict, at least until Assad’s ouster. In 2019, Russia and Turkey even coordinated their policies along the Turkish-Syrian border, with Moscow recognizing the validity of Ankara’s security concerns vis-à-vis armed groups in Syria and potential spillover of the conflict.

In practice, the Astana Process reduced violence in Syria by essentially freezing the civil war through mediated agreements starting in 2017. In particular, a series of free passage deals saw armed rebels surrender territory in the south in return for being allowed to relocate to Idlib, a governorate in northwestern Syria along the Turkish border that the Assad regime lost control of in 2015. As a result, Idlib became a bastion for the Syrian opposition as well as a refuge for millions of displaced Syrians, with HTS ultimately establishing itself as the landlocked enclave’s governing entity.

In 2020, the Syrian military, with full support from Moscow and Tehran, began a campaign to take back Idlib, but Turkey intervened militarily to thwart Damascus from achieving this goal. Ankara’s main motivation was to prevent any large influx of refugees from Idlib into southern Turkey. Though Ankara never directly backed HTS, in protecting Idlib it became the group’s indirect benefactor and de facto security guarantor. By November 2024, it was only with Turkey’s tacit approval that HTS was able to launch its lightning offensive that took first Aleppo and then Damascus, ending 54 years of rule by the Assad family—and 61 years of Baathist political domination—in Syria.

Pragmatic Engagement

Facing a completely new reality in Syria, Russia has acted pragmatically. Officials in Moscow and their new counterparts in Damascus have engaged each other, with both sides seeing a value to maintaining bilateral relations despite the baggage of Russia’s past support for Assad. Russia and Syria’s interim government are negotiating terms for a continued Russian military presence in Tartus—a naval base it had leased for decades prior to the civil war—and in Hmeimim, where Russia established an air base at the outset of its intervention in 2015. Moscow has also addressed a possible Russian role in helping Syria with postwar reconstruction and redevelopment.

As a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, Moscow has cards to play to further incentivize the new Syrian government to work with it in ways that enable the Russians to retain some degree of influence in Syria even with Assad out of the picture. With the U.S. for now maintaining its civil war-era sanctions on Syria, Damascus has its own motivations for keeping the door open to good relations with Russia.

With Turkey now serving as Syria’s “new kingmaker,” the Russians understand that avoiding engagement with Ankara or disregarding Turkish interests in Syria is not an option. For Russia to make any major moves in Syria, it will have to coordinate with Turkey in one way or the other. Mindful of Turkey’s leverage—not only in Syria, but also in relation to the Black Sea and Ukraine—Russia’s leadership wants to contain tensions with Ankara.

From Turkey’s perspective, coordination with Russia on the Syrian front is important, especially given the unpredictability of U.S. President Donald Trump and the uncertainty surrounding his administration’s approach toward Syria. If Trump pursues policies toward Syria that undermine Turkish interests, Erdogan could turn to Putin to counterbalance Washington. Ankara is also aware that Israel is currently lobbying the U.S. to support a continued Russian military presence in Syria as a means of countering Ankara’s clout, at a time in which Turkish-Israeli tensions vis-à-vis Syria are hot. In this context, Turkey’s leadership assesses that a fruitful dialogue with the Russians benefits Ankara’s long-term interests.

Ultimately, Turkey and Russia view each other with much suspicion. The Turks fear Russia’s ambitions not only in the Middle East, but also in Eastern Europe. The past several months of developments in Syria will likely add new layers of friction to the Ankara-Moscow relationship. Nonetheless, Erdogan’s and Putin’s governments have, to their credit, a record of successfully compartmentalizing issues, finding ways to cooperate on certain files despite major sources of tension in other areas of the relationship.

Always determined to drive a wedge between Turkey and the rest of NATO, while also recognizing Ankara’s increased clout in the “New Syria,” Russia sees Turkey as a player it must work with as Moscow navigates post-Assad Syria’s shifting landscape. Meanwhile officials in Ankara see Russia as a nuclear-armed global power that has the means to both severely harm Turkey and also give Ankara more options for maneuverability in a multipolar world, thus giving the Turks many reasons to maintain healthy relations with Moscow.

Moreover, despite their differences, Turkey and Russia still share common interests in Syria, including preventing the Islamic State from regaining a foothold in the country and countering Washington’s agenda when doing so serves their purposes. For these reasons, they are likely to continue engaging each other on Syria as well as other files, keeping relations respectful but also competitive.

Giorgio Cafiero is the CEO and founder of Gulf State Analytics, a Washington-based geopolitical risk consultancy that focuses on the Middle East, and an adjunct assistant professor at Georgetown University. Follow him on Twitter @GiorgioCafiero.