If the Balkans were once the powder keg of Europe, it is now the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea that threatens to bring Europe, the United States and Russia to the brink of the second cold war. These days the analogies of the war of 1853-1856 are brought up quite often: Back then, the Russians hoped to deal an easy blow to the Ottomans but instead found themselves confronted by a coalition of the British and French empires and the Kingdom of Sardinia. Although direct parallels would be inaccurate, of about 16 wars fought between the Russian and Ottoman empires it was the battle over the Crimea that was a tremendous game changer in the European status quo and international system in general.

Indeed, the prospect of a complicated continuous standoff, or — God forbid — war, is worrisome. Although Turkey is not the main protagonist this time, it is the "gray cardinal" whose opinion is important to Moscow.

Certainly, the two are not on the same page in Syria and some other Middle Eastern matters; they have historically adversarial relations in the South Caucasus; and they have a conflicting modern record of Turkish support for Islamist and nationalist movements in the North Caucasus. But be it bilateral trade relations or pipeline geopolitics, instead of keeping in line with its NATO allies Turkey is more savvy in following its own national interests than many Western diplomats and analysts would like to think.

It is this niche that the Kremlin is trying to fill: In recent years, it proved effective in dealing with pragmatically oriented regimes, making all sorts of ideological alliances look lame. Moscow is not disillusioned about Turkey’s interests in the Crimea and its historic relations with the Tatars there. Moreover, discussions between the leader of the Crimean Tatar people Refat Chubarov and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the restoration of rights of Crimean Tatars and implementation of humanitarian projects by international organizations and the Turkish government raised serious concerns among some influential Russian analysts, so much so that Crimean Tatars miss the days of once being part of the Ottoman Empire and want Turkey back in one form or another.