Russia’s affair with Turkey has been blossoming for decades – why has it taken the west so long to pay attention?

The ongoing war in Syria and the 2016 coup attempt gave the Kremlin its most recent opportunities in Turkey, and Ankara knows it – apparently western nations don’t

To diplomats in London, Washington, Paris and Brussels, it’s Turkey that is the belligerent actor. It has defied Nato rules by buying Russian weaponry, part of a pattern of Ankara drifting away from western norms under president Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

To much of Turkey, it’s the west that has betrayed it, writing off its security concerns and European aspirations because of surging Islamophobia.

But there is another pattern at work in Turkey that many observers on both sides have missed, one that is familiar to those that have watched the Balkans and eastern Europe over the last few years.