Why Russia Support Erdogan to win a new presidential term?

All who observe the Russian-Turkish relationship, realize how close the two countries are.

The Turkish and Russian president Recep tayyip Erdogan and Vladimir Putin, share a great, close relationship, even in personal level.

And with that being said, there’s no doubt on Russia’s full support with interest in Erdogan’s victory in the upcoming elections.

The Turkish presidential and parliamentary elections, which will take place in May, constitute an important piece of the puzzle in a major geopolitical game.

The Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, by his decision, moved the elections on month ahead, to take place on May 14th.

There are a number of reasons, on why Erdogan moved the Election date.

First, which is no secret of the reality economic problems that Türkiye is facing, with inflation rates has exceeded 64% over the past year, and the impact of measures taken to support the population and businesses is temporary and limited.

This means that dissatisfaction with economic failures within Turkish society is gradually increasing, and resentment is also spreading to the camp of Erdogan’s supporters.

The second reason, is Erdogan realizing the efforts made by the Turkish opposition in order to create some sort of union against him in the election, despite the fact of the differences between opposition leaders in multiple issues, with Erdogan knowing the fact that moving the election date forward could confuses the opposition at a time when the Turkish president is keen to obtain more popular support to defeat the opposition in the elections.

As for Russia’s support for Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Moscow knows well that a victory for Turkish opposition candidate would almost certainly mean a shift in Türkiye’s foreign policy away from Russia.

With Erdogan gone, Türkiye’s independent struggle will end, which will fraught with a host of unpleasant consequences.

The fact that Türkiye is one of the main suppliers of products to Russia, with a parallel import route.

Stimulating demand for imported goods to balance Russia’s balance of payments without Türkiye will be more difficult.

The hard but fruitful dialogue with Ankara allowed Russia to limit its participation in resolving the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict without expanding the peacekeeping force in the region.

It’s clear that diverting large military resources to Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia doesn’t suit Russia in the meantime.

Currently the Iranian armed forces, stationed near the border with Armenia, and this plays a major role in balancing the power in the region.

At the same time, the Russian-Turkish-Iranian cooperation in multiple issues, especially in Syria got extremely personal, which helped stabilize the situation to some point.

It’s difficult to imagine such famous three-way conversations between Vladimir Putin, Ebrahim Raisi and Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the summer of 2022 if another Turkish leader is in the post.

At the same time, even an election victory for Erdogan might not necessarily strengthen his position.

After all, he might get an opposition parliament and a prolonged internal political crisis.

Russia has all the desire to see Erdogan remain in Power in Türkiye, especially in these critical times, with Russia’s struggle in Ukraine and the never before western sanctions imposed that hurt Russian economy, but failed to bring it down, thanks to the long term strategic relations that Putin managed to achieve with other powers in the World, and Türkiye is without a shadow of a doubt in the top of the list.