Why did Putin rejoice in Erdoğan’s victory?

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who have held the reins of power for many years, have woven a close personal relationship that gained more importance.

What leads to believe that Putin would have voted for Erdoğan if he had been allowed to cast his vote in the Turkish presidential elections; Because of its impact on complex issues, including Syria, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and energy, to name a few.

Erdoğan is a special case for Putin because of their mutual relations that lead to agree on several issues.

Even in politics, the personal relationship between two leaders contribute greatly, and this goes for Erdoğan’s and Putin, as they understand each other well.

In recent years Moscow and Ankara worked together on several critical issues, and there’s no secret that Russians breathed a sigh of relief after the Turkish presidential elections ended on Erdoğan’s favor.

Russia understand that Erdoğan is the leader of the second military force in NATO behind the United States.

Erdoğan for his part never hid his special relations with the Russian president, as he in recent CNN interview, he spoke about the special relationship that binds him to Putin.

Erdoğan had confirmed the Türkiye and Russia are two strong countries that have a positive relationship and need each other in every field.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, earlier, in response to a question about the reasons for the understanding between Presidents Putin and Erdoğan: “Two statesmen, each of whom respects his word”.

On the other hand, many political experts in Türkiye believed that opposition candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu committed a mistake by angering Russia after he accused Moscow at the beginning of May of interfering in the election campaign, which Moscow vehemently denied.

According to Moscow, Kılıçdaroğlu’s victory in the elections would pose a threat to the future of Russian-Turkish relations, because such a victory could lead to an improvement in relations between Ankara and some of its NATO allies, after they were marred by tension over Erdoğan’s rise when purchased the S400 air defense systems from Russia, which sparked widespread criticism from its allies, especially the United States.

As for the Syrian issue, relations between Moscow and Ankara weren’t at their best, as they witnessed severe tension in 2015 when Türkiye shot down a Russian aircraft at its border with Syria, which was participating in operations launched by Moscow in support for the Syrian government, but in January on the second of 2017, Russia, along with Türkiye and Iran, formed the Astana formula for negotiations that resulted in five de-escalation zones in Syria.

In December 2022, Moscow witnessed the first public meeting between the defense and intelligence ministers of Russia, Türkiye and Syria, the culmination of the Turkish-Syrian rapprochement path.

In conclusion, Erdoğan remaining in power is a beautiful sound to ear of Putin, as both leaders share an interesting relations which can be critical for them, however it won’t be the same to many others on the other side of the globe.