As someone of Polish ancestry I will back the Turks on this one. Turks are actually human beings (yes, I’ve been there).
Jan Sobieski would beg to differ.
I’m of Polish ancestry as well, and I’d love to see a liberated Constantinople. Turkey was a good ally at one time. Not any more.
Russia will probably get its clock cleaned. Geography is on Erdogan’s side. He has land access to Syria, and Putin doesn’t.
The easiest way of preventing Turkey from doing whatever it wants in Syria would be an attack across the Russian border with Turkey to force the Turks to divert their forces away from Syria. Problem is Article 5 of the NATO Charter, involving an allied response to attacks against a NATO member’s territory, would come into play. The Article 4 meeting might have been an attempt to gin up NATO support just in case the Russians decide to start bombing Turkish bases from facilities in Russia proper.
It would be interesting to see whether Putin orders airstrikes against Turkey from Russian bases, if the Turks move further into Syria, and perhaps against the Russian air base there. However, I seriously doubt the Russians want to start trading aircraft with the Turks, because they’re pretty expensive. But it could happen, if Erdogan ups the ante. The issue for Putin is that the Turkish air force is a lot more capable than what the Ukrainians and Georgians had, both equipment- and personnel-wise. NATO standards are fairly high, and Turkey is one of the better-armed NATO members.
And when I say the land border with Turkey, I mean Armenia, even though that is separated from Russia proper by countries not necessarily friendly to Russia, such as Georgia and Azerbaijan. One of them could, however, be paid off, on a one-off basis to let supplies through to Armenia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_102nd_Military_Base
Two words:
Armenian Genocide