Russian ideologue Alexander Dugin arrived in Istanbul and Ankara as "a special envoy of Putin" just one day before the failed 2016 coup attempt - and left the Turkish capital literally hours before the events began, former Ukrainian Ambassador Serhiy Korsunsky has revealed, calling these "absolutely established facts."
Korsunsky, who was serving as Ukraine's ambassador to Turkey at the time, shared his firsthand account during a broadcast with Yuriy Romanenko on March 5, as "Hvylya" reported.
"I saw it firsthand, sitting on a balcony. It was late evening, ten o'clock," Korsunskyy recalled, describing the moment F-15s began flying over Ankara on the night of the coup. Politicians in both Istanbul and Ankara welcomed Dugin enthusiastically, which struck the ambassador as bizarre. "Who is he?" Korsunsky asked. Yet newspapers presented Dugin as Putin's closest advisor.
The diplomat offered a theory close to what he called "reality": the Gulenist coup plot may have been provoked rather than organic. "There are grounds to believe that the Russians poured fuel on the fire regarding certain processes happening in Turkey's domestic politics," he said. In his assessment, Dugin came not to deliver a warning, but "to observe the results" of a provocation already set in motion.
Korsunsky questioned the entire premise of a Gulenist power grab. Fethullah Gulen's organization, he argued, was built on education and creating a more modern, European Turkish elite - "it didn't have such political goals." The diplomat believes the Gulenists were provoked into premature action, and the rushed, half-hearted nature of the coup - "half the army revolted, half didn't" - supports this reading.
The official Turkish narrative credits Putin with being the first leader to call Erdogan during the crisis. Korsunsky corrected this: "That's not true, because we were first." But Erdogan chose to credit Moscow, while the EU waited a full day to issue a statement - a slight the Turkish president never forgave.
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