you need to be careful where you get your news
The Western reporting services are almost totally managed to slant every report against Russia
The deep political history between Russia and the Kurds, the Russian interest in taking lead as regional diplomats in working out an end to the Syrian war and embedded terrorists , and Russia working in Assad’s interest of having Kurds functionally if not in name as part if an arab republic make it illogical and irrational that Russia wants to side with the Erdogan against the Kurds
That is a lose-lose scenario
“you need to be careful where you get your news”
Here is the transcript with unaltered words of Mattis.