They visited an aviation exhibition on the outskirts of Moscow. They inspected Russian war machine. And in the end, Russian President Vladimir Putin gave his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan an ice cream.
When Erdogan visited Putin in August, the two heads of state demonstrated their friendship with provocation.
The two politicians have a moving relationship behind them. When Turkish soldiers shot down a Russian jet over Syria in 2015, both states were still close to war. Ever since Erdogan apologized for the incident, Putin and he have come closer and closer: both coordinate their Syria policy, and Turkey bought the Russian S-400 missile defense system in June, much to the annoyance of NATO.
Nevertheless, when Erdogan and Putin meet again in the Russian city of Sochi on the Black Sea on Tuesday, they still do not meet on equal footing. As much as Erdogan may understand himself as a leading figure in the Middle East, in Syria he increasingly depends on Putin.
With the withdrawal of US troops, the conflict in Syria has taken another, dramatic turn: Turkey invaded the northeast of the country, whereupon the Kurdish militia YPG, which had previously controlled the region with the US, was in dire need of Syria Bashar al-Assad, the dictator, asked for help - and indirectly also its most important protective power: Russia.
After eight years, the Syrian civil war is entering its possibly decisive phase. The situation on the battlefield is still unclear, but one thing is already clear: Winners are the despots Putin and Assad, who split Syria among themselves.
Although Turkey and the United States have surprisingly agreed a five-day ceasefire last week, the YPG is now set to withdraw from the border area following the will of Ankara and Washington. But whether this arrangement will last and whether Turkey ultimately gets the buffer zone on its own border, for which Erdogan has advertised for months, is decided primarily in Moscow.
Unable to act without Putin
Erdogan, according to confidants, was surprised by the deal between the Kurds and Assad. Although the Turkish President continues to assert his intention to continue his military mission until the last YPG fighter from the north of Syria is expelled. But he himself knows that without the support of Putin in Syria, he is largely unable to act.
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Through skillful diplomacy and ruthless warfare, Putin has managed to keep Assad in power. There is hardly a taboo that Russia and the regime of the Syrian despot have not broken in this war: Assad used poison gas against his own people and starved entire cities; Russian jets deliberately bombarded hospitals.
Europeans and Americans have criticized these atrocities but have done little to prevent them. Now Putin can decide who gets what in Syria.
It almost does not matter that the US has made concessions to Turkey: what happens in Syria is what Putin wants. Erdogan can hardly guard a possible buffer zone from Turkish troops or Syrian rebels if Moscow declines - he would then risk a military confrontation with Russia.
Putin is pursuing several goals in Syria: On the one hand, he wants Assad to regain control of the entire national territory. On the other hand, he is keen to continue splitting Turkey and NATO. Therefore, it is quite possible that the Kremlin chief will leave his Turkish counterpart at the end of a piece of Syrian territory.
But Erdogan's influence on this decision is likely to be very small.
