Turkey is interested in conflict between Russia and Ukraine to expand its influence – Pavel Dubravskiy

Speaking with Alpha News, Pavel Dubravskiy, political strategist and head of Dubravskiy Consulting, commented on the purpose of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s visit to Turkey. According to the expert, the key objective of Lavrov’s trip is to understand Turkey’s position on the Ukrainian issue.

“I believe this visit is more related to the Ukrainian delegation, which is currently participating in the negotiations, and the Russian delegation, which is also participating. Why? Because recently, Turkish President Erdogan stated that he would like to support Ukraine’s participation in all talks that are taking place between the United States and Russia. I believe that in addition to the official purposes of this visit, it is also to informally understand what Turkey’s position is. Because Turkey has publicly insisted on including Ukraine in the talks. Therefore, it seems to me that this was the key objective of this trip.

The Turkish state represented by Erdogan will always choose, of course, its national interests, but it is obvious that the conflict between Russia and Ukraine is interesting for Turkey in terms of expanding its influence. Let me remind you that Erdogan proposed Turkey as a neutral platform for negotiations instead of Saudi Arabia. The United States did not react to this in any way, and neither did the Russian side, as far as I know. So I would say that this attempt failed. We can already see that negotiations between Russia and the United States are being conducted directly, and the United States has not even included the Turkish side in those countries that could be interesting as a participant at the table,” Dubravskiy said.

According to the expert, Erdogan does not want Russia to strengthen.

“For Erdogan, the current negotiations between Russia and the United States look like a strengthening of Russia, and he, as a major, not even a regional, but a global player, of course, perceives this as a real strengthening of Russia. And given that the modern world is a world where everyone competes with each other and the idea of states defending their interests is returning, he, of course, does not want one state, one country to strengthen dramatically, moreover, to build such good, perhaps partnership relations with the United States, as some experts predict, although I disagree with this,” Dubravskiy concluded.