Turkey, a sometimes wavering NATO ally, backs Ukraine

Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s decision to provide weapons and diplomatically back Ukraine was a public rebuke to Moscow

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey agreed Thursday to expand supplies of one of the Ukrainian army’s most sophisticated weapons, a long-range, Turkish-made armed drone whose use in combat for the first time in Ukraine in the fall infuriated Russian officials.

Erdogan’s decision to provide weapons and diplomatically back Ukraine was a public rebuke to Moscow and another complicating factor in the mix of cooperation and conflict between Turkey and Russia, historical rivals for supremacy in the region around the Black Sea.

The promise of more arms for Ukraine, especially an offensive weapon like the Turkish drone, is an extremely sensitive issue for Moscow, which says that its security is threatened and that it has no choice but to mass troops on the Ukrainian border. Ukrainians, while welcoming diplomatic support, have said that what they primarily need are more weapons to deter any attack.

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The Turkish leader’s visit to Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, to announce the arms deal came as diplomatic dividing lines are being drawn in the crisis, with the United States, Britain and Eastern European nations sending weaponry to bolster Ukraine in the event of war with Russia. A US airlift of anti-tank missiles and small-arms ammunition continued Thursday with the arrival of a seventh cargo jet of weaponry to Kyiv.

At the same time, Russia denounced the Biden administration’s announcement that it would send additional troops to NATO countries, with the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, accusing the United States of “igniting tensions on the European continent.”

Turkey has sold Ukraine armed, Bayraktar TB2 drones that the Ukrainian military used for the first time in combat in the war with Russian-backed separatists in October. The drone destroyed a separatist howitzer from miles away, surprising the separatists.

The missile strike suggested a tipping of the military balance in the eastern Ukraine war using a NATO-provided weapon, angering Russia. Putin mentioned the drone attack in the fall in speeches.

And in December, Putin protested the drone sales directly in a telephone call with Erdogan, saying that the Ukrainians’ use of Turkish armed drones was “destructive” and “provocative activity,” according to a Kremlin readout of the call.

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