Vladimir Putin, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Tayyip Erdogan are conducting a summit of rogue stooges.
Putin’s Russia and the Ayatollah’s Iran are scrambling to survive economically, as the West imposes significant economic sanctions that will impede Russia and Iran from generating revenues to stay solvent. Erdogan is mostly obsessed with the Kurdish presence in and around Turkey. All these countries are intimidated by the US and supportive of Bashar al-Assad of Syria who is responsible for horrendous human rights violations.
Russia is the easiest country to denigrate in this meeting of scoundrels. Putin is trying to reconstruct the former Soviet Union, after 30 years of independence of the former SSR’s. Some of the SSRs, in particular, Ukraine, have prospered after being released by Russia when the Cold War ended. The Russian invasion of the Ukraine is the first important step to bring together countries with long standing Russian culture and act as a buffer between Europe and Russia- a pipe dream.
It’s obvious that Russia has made a number of bonehead decisions about its military advances in Ukraine. For one thing, the Russians were not trained properly to take on such a fight. The decisions by Putin and his generals seriously underestimated the resolve of the Ukraine people, and the response of the global international community.
With a great deal of assistance from the US and other sympathetic countries, Ukrainians have resisted Russian advances, even though defeat is likely. But Russia has experienced massive losses of soldiers and equipment. And most importantly, the West is doubting the military acumen and strength of Russia to do war against Europe with US support. Of course, all of this is contingent upon the possible use of tactical nuclear weapons Russia.
By soliciting the help of Iran and Turkey, it is questionable how Russia will improve its military situation or regain its status as a world leader. Iran is impoverished and mostly interested in dealing with its hated enemies, the Sunnis and Israel. Iran will be fortunate to avoid a regime change in the medium term by its citizens based upon its present course of actions.
Turkey derives safety from NATO, which is Europe’s principal military force. So, it is unlikely that Turkey will side with Russia and Iran militarily unless killing Kurds is part of the deal.
Iran has begun to make noises that a nuclear weapon is within its reach. It would not surprise many to see Israel taking more action against Iran, given the weakened state of the latter.
If it wasn’t such a sad state of affairs in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, it would be humorous that Putin can only find solace from the likes of Iran and Turkey. Both of the countries have far greater designs than assisting in the takeover of Ukraine. It’s highly unlikely that neither of the rogue nations will be helpful to Russia strategically or diplomatically.
Many analysts are impatiently awaiting some kind of massive event in Russia. Putin seems to be unbalanced and fighting for the sake of fighting, without any strategic goals. I’m surprised the Russian people are not revolting at this moment.
Nothing will come out of this three-country summit because each has a separate agenda.