Just three and a half years ago, on January 20, 2016, the Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan had good reason to congratulate himself. He had successfully arranged a scheme of payoffs for two men who were intimate advisors to the presidents of the United States and Russia — at the very same time. They were Lieutenant-General Michael Flynn, the National Security Advisor to Donald Trump; and Dmitry Peskov, the spokesman for Vladimir Putin.

No one had pulled off the simultaneity before; but it was short-lived. Flynn was forced to resign after just 24 days in office and charged with lying to the FBI. He subsequently pleaded guilty and is now facing a prison sentence. Investigation of his lucratively paid lobbying for Turkey is still under way.

Peskov remains in his Kremlin office, as he has for the past seven years. However, the Defence Ministry led by Sergei Shoigu and the General Staff headed by General Valery Gerasimov, have rebelled against Peskov's line with Putin, ending for all practical purposes the terms of agreement Putin and Erdogan signed last September for a Turkish protectorate of Idlib governorate in northwestern  Syria.