Yerevan /Mediamax/. French magazine Le Point writes that Erdogan has crossed "two red lines” in the Caucasus.

“He has turned Azerbaijan into a new instrument of conquering Islamist policy and sent Syrian mercenaries to the front. He has intensified the Islamist threat where it long existed and showed that Russia is not the only power that can conduct military operations there. Moscow is seriously concerned about the possible destabilization of the Muslim republics of the North Caucasus, in particular Chechnya, where fierce wars already raged in the 1990s. Erdogan has changed the alignment in the Caucasus in his own way like he did the beginning of the year in Libya (he tried to do the same in Syria, but to no avail). In each case, he did not hesitate to go against Russian interests.

Nevertheless, in Libya and Syria Putin and Erdogan showed they took into account each other’s interests and were ready not to push confrontation too far. The Russian leader met the Turkish one in the middle every time, because Erdogan invariably benefited those destabilizing NATO (be it the purchase of Russian S-400 missile systems or the crisis in the Eastern Mediterranean) and underscored the inadequacy of American claims to world leadership. However, has the Turkish sultan gone too far this time?” Le Point writes.