Turkey attacks the Kurds in Syria (Part 2: Russia sticks with the Kurds?)

Turkey recently launched attacks into Syria. Specifically, those attacks were in Afrin, which is controlled by Kurds. The YPG (People's Protection Units) are the Kurdish forces in that area. Turkey has issues with the YPG as they believe them to be an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The PKK is responsible for the Kurdish independence movement in Turkey.


In Part 1, I focused to a large degree on the US role. For this one, my focus is more on Russia along with other events and some concluding questions/thoughts.

On January 18th, Reuters had a brief two sentence post about how Turkey would coordinate Afrin operations with Russia.

On January 19th, Reuters had this piece of information:

Turkey had sent its military chief to Moscow on Thursday to seek approval for an air campaign in Afrin, although Damascus warned it could shoot down any Turkish planes in its skies.

Side note: One reason why Turkey is likely focusing on Afrin and not the other parts of Northern Syria that is held by the Kurds is that the US has about 2,000 troops in Kurdish controlled territory; however, none are known to be in the Afrin area.

Though Turkey did go to the Russians to discuss their plans, it doesn't appear they were successful in convincing Russia to let them take out the Kurds in Afrin. On January 20th, Reuters reported that Russia was going to the U.N. to demand that Turkey stop their military actions.

On January 19th, The LA Times reported:

Syria said on Thursday its air defense would shoot down any Turkish jets that carry out attacks within Syria . . .

I think it should be noted that it states that Syria will shoot down Turkish jets. It doesn't necessarily say it'll go after any Turkish military on the ground, which we know their are some.

Other Questions/Thoughts:

First: One question I have is if Turkey wishes to permanently control parts of Syria? If not, they'd at some point be abandoning their Syrian rebel allies.

Second: I previously stated my belief that the US and Russia were using the Kurds just to defeat ISIS and would back away once ISIS fell. The US would fall in line with the Turkish position. Russia would tell the Kurds they expected them to make up with the Syrian government.

Currently, it looks like the US is sticking with the Kurds even when their NATO ally isn't happy about this. Is the US more concerned about Iran versus their NATO ally? Russia is also supporting the Kurds at the moment though they are worried about a "partitioned" Syria. So maybe I was right about Russia and not so right about how the US would deal with the Kurds.

Third: This Turkey/US/Kurds dynamic is interesting. At the moment, the US is specifically taking an international action that their NATO ally is against.

Fourth: Though this has been true for awhile, it is interesting how all these military attacks in Syria are being communicated with the big players: the US and Russia. Turkey obviously wants to take out the Kurds in Afrin, but they want to make sure they don't kill any Russia military personnel. No one wants this to blow up into a larger, beyond Syrian border, conflict.