The Turkish President’s beloved daughter Esra has thus commented on the latest events in Syria: "Assad fell, and Erdogan won."

And her father praised himself, saying to the entire Turkish people that there are only two capable leaders left in the world – Recep Erdogan and Vladimir Putin.

If you don't toot your own horn, nobody else will…

As regards the Turkish leader's proven record, his message is quite correct: Erdogan has been in power for 22 years, though his experience is 100 percent based on purely oriental quirks and subsequent double-dealing. And the fact of Bashar al-Assad’s fall is all but natural within Syria’s historical context. The top echelons of power in Moscow seem to have grown increasingly aware of that over the last years. Still, a truly sad thing is how much effort and sacrifice the Russian state and its people have made at the altar of a seemingly close Arab country throughout four decades.

After unconvincing denials of his engagement in the Syrian tragedy, Erdogan indirectly admitted both his interest and role in preparing a coup in Syria by proxy of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) his country created and armed, which captured Aleppo and later the city of Manbij. Its detachments, rubbing shoulders with thugs of the international terrorist Islamic group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) (banned in Russia), entered Hama, Homs, and Damascus.

Now there is talk that the Turks have nothing to do with HTS, and the pro-Turkish proxy army was only established against the Kurdish People's Defense Forces, which Ankara listed as a terrorist organization. And the “cuddly” proxy army is claimed to comprise fugitive Syrian government army deserters representing interests of the "peacefully irreconcilable" Syrian opposition.

Both the terrorists from Idlib and the Turkish proxies present themselves as Syrian patriots with a shared idea of overthrowing Bashar al-Assad’s regime. But the Turks do assign an additional role to their wards – displacing Kurdish armed groups from northern Syria as deep as 30-40 km to the south, if not defeating them altogether. This is why their offensive made the Kurds lose control of a key defense area in Manbij. The next offensive is going to be launched against Kurdish forces in the city of Kobani, local observers claim.

This Turkish victory has coincided with a bloody provocation carried out by the Turks. According to Reuters, the Ottomans disguised an FSA unit as Kurdish military and massacred peasants in one of the villages. Turkish journalists took video of crime consequences and participants to distribute both domestically and in a number of Arab countries, including Syria itself. But oops, people in the audience identified the characters as their acquaintances serving with the Turkish army. Erdogan's bandits are now said to have murdered an entire Christian village…

The sultan needed to discredit the Kurdish military and political leadership by concocting a bogus charge for his enemy in the image and semblance of Bucha in Ukraine.

Local observers have been noting separate armed clashes between terrorists of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and militants of the Turkish proxy army. It is a stretch of imagination what will happen in the future with power-sharing over the territory and administrative cabinet slots. In the meantime, the Arabic-style "cleansing" has gotten underway: armed people of all shades and rebel belongings are seeking to lynch their enemies, government army soldiers, government officials, etc. Among the videos distributed is one depicting the murder of two Syrian soldiers by militants in a hospital.

Local population is experiencing a real fright of bandits who are openly engaged in robberies, theft, and all the other sorts of criminal activity. Things developed so rapidly that only a few managed to escape to neighboring countries. Border crossings with Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon were already closed in the early days of the Turkish-backed expansion. Most refugees used airline charter flights.

But let’s get back to Erdogan.

One must frankly admit the success of his venture with the overthrow of the Syrian regime. But what's next? Given his insistence on achieving a solution for the problem of Syrian refugees by expelling them from Turkey to place in northern Syria, Erdogan will be forced to use his proxy army to sweep the Kurdish-controlled territory of the governorates of Aleppo, al-Hasakah and partially Raqqa. Pentagon-supported detachments of the Kurdish People's Defense Forces will not surrender these lands without resistance. The Turks will have to settle the issue with Brother Johnathan, for which read the new US administration. And the price of the bargain is still anyone’s guess. One of the options is Russia's military presence: Erdogan may be offered to incite his (and other) proxies against the Russian bases of Khmeimim and Tartus.

However, all of this is yet to come. We will keep abreast of the situation.