Zelenskyy: Ukraine must not lose President Erdoğan and Turkey’s friendship

Yusuf Inan
Journalist and Author | Political and Strategic Analyst

NIKOLAEV, Ukraine — Ukraine is passing through one of the most important periods in its modern history, and it must not allow local bureaucracy to damage its strategic friendship with Turkey.

This is not an abstract diplomatic warning. It is a personal, painful and documented call from someone who lived in Ukraine, helped people in Nikolaev, defended Ukraine with his pen, and then personally experienced treatment that no citizen of a friendly country should face.

Ukraine is fighting a brutal war. It is trying to keep its people standing. Europe and America provide vital support, but Ukraine’s deepest strength is still its own people: their courage, their resurrection, their refusal to abandon their land. Yet the second great strength of Ukraine is its ability to keep its friends close.

Turkey is one of those friends. Not only the Turkish state, but the Turkish people, Turkish civil society, Turkish business circles and the wider Turkish and Islamic world have deep emotional and historical ties with Ukraine. That friendship must not be poisoned by local misconduct, careless bureaucracy or officials who behave as if citizens of the Republic of Turkey are fifth-class people.

Ukraine needs Turkey as a strategic friend, not only as a diplomatic contact

Ukraine must carry its relationship with Turkey to a deeper, warmer and more permanent level. Turkey is a NATO member, a Black Sea power, a country that can speak to both Ukraine and Russia, and a state with influence in the Turkic and Islamic worlds.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is one of the most experienced actors on the global chessboard. Ukraine should benefit more from his strategic knowledge, diplomatic experience and crisis-management capacity. A peace table in Istanbul is not a small matter. It is a serious diplomatic opportunity.

Turkey would not support a peace formula that harms Ukraine’s essential interests. Ankara knows the Black Sea, understands Russia, has channels to Moscow, and at the same time has stood with Ukraine in crucial moments. For that reason, Ukraine should treat Turkey not as an ordinary partner, but as a strategic friend whose public support must be protected.

Turkish business should also have a stronger place in Ukraine’s reconstruction. Turkish companies can contribute in construction, logistics, energy, agriculture, food, technology and infrastructure. But that requires confidence. Turkish citizens and businesspeople must feel that Ukrainian state institutions will treat them with dignity, legality and respect.

Crimea and Crimean Tatars are a red line for Turkey

Ukraine must also understand one more reality: Crimea is not only a territorial issue in Turkish public opinion. For Turkey and the Turkish nation, Crimea is a matter of history, conscience, identity and justice.

Crimean Tatars are a red line for 86 million people in Turkey. Crimean Turks and Crimean Muslims have a special place in the heart of the Turkish and Islamic worlds. What happens in Ukraine, especially when Crimea and Crimean Tatars are involved, directly concerns millions of people far beyond Ukraine’s borders.

This is why Turkey’s support matters so much. If Turkey stands firmly with Ukraine, the attention of the Turkic world and much of the Islamic world also turns toward Ukraine. President Erdoğan’s voice, Turkey’s diplomatic weight and the Turkish nation’s emotional bond with Crimea are assets Ukraine should value carefully.

A state at war cannot afford to lose such a friend because of the behavior of some local officials.

Russia’s attacks and Ukraine’s defense cannot be morally equated

There is also a moral distinction that must be stated clearly. Russia attacks Ukrainian villages, civilian homes, poor families, elderly people who cannot even reach shelters, and residential areas where women and children live. Drones and missiles fall on ordinary people. Some of those killed may even be Russian-speaking Ukrainians, the very people Moscow claims to protect.

Ukraine, on the other hand, is defending its own land. Ukrainian strikes against military facilities, strategic targets and war-related infrastructure cannot be placed on the same moral level as attacks on civilians.

War has rules. War has a conscience. No moral framework can justify striking homes where children, elderly people and defenseless civilians live.

That is why Ukraine’s moral superiority is so important. But moral superiority is not preserved only on the battlefield. It must also be preserved in state offices, police stations, migration procedures and security institutions. A country that asks the world to recognize its just cause must also protect justice in its own administrative conduct.

What I experienced in Nikolaev is a serious warning

I lived in Nikolaev for years. Through a foundation established there, I helped organize food aid for hundreds of thousands of poor people, disabled citizens, families of martyrs and veterans. I am not a stranger to Ukraine’s pain. I am a journalist and writer who has defended Ukraine with his pen.

Yet what I personally experienced in Nikolaev with some SBU officers, the Migration Office and police procedures does not fit the line of law, humanity or friendship.

I am the father of three young daughters. A father wants to take his children out of the war. Bureaucracy blocks him. A father wants to stay near his children, protect them and help them. Some officials create processes that weaken family bonds, push children away from their father and manipulate the family environment.

My phone was taken. My personal information was accessed. I was pressured with handwritten documents in Ukrainian, a language I cannot fully verify in legal form. My family situation was influenced. The process of taking my children to Turkey was made difficult. I experienced steps that effectively separated me from my children in a country at war.

These are not rumors. These are events I personally experienced. They are recorded in official correspondence and legal files. The documents cannot be published here, but they exist and have been submitted to the relevant authorities.

Are some officials helping Ukraine, or helping Russia’s narrative?

This is a painful question, but it must be asked: are some SBU employees in Nikolaev protecting the Ukrainian state, or are their actions producing results that serve Russia’s interests?

Any official action that poisons Turkish-Ukrainian relations, mistreats a Turkish journalist and writer, and separates a father from three young daughters must be urgently investigated. Such conduct is not acceptable for the Ukrainian state. Its consequences come dangerously close to damaging Ukraine from within.

Russia wants Ukraine isolated. Russia wants Ukraine to lose friends. Russia wants the Turkish public to ask, “Is this how Ukraine treats citizens of a country that supports it?”

If Turkish citizens are treated in Ukraine as if they were fifth-class people, Moscow gains propaganda material. Putin’s narrative needs such images: “Ukraine mistreats even citizens of friendly countries.” That is why what happened in Nikolaev is not just a local bureaucratic problem. It is a national security and strategic communication problem.

Ukraine must not allow anyone inside its own institutions to hand Russia such a gift.

A direct call to Zelenskyy and the SBU leadership

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has entered history as a leader who stayed with his people when Ukraine was invaded. When others expected him to leave, he stood with his soldiers and citizens. That leadership earned respect around the world.

Now that same leadership must also be shown inside the state. President Zelenskyy, SBU Acting Head Major General Yevhenii Khmara, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko, National Police Chief Ivan Vyhivskyi and all responsible Ukrainian authorities should examine what happened in Nikolaev.

They should investigate whether some SBU employees in Nikolaev acted in a way that protected the state or instead sabotaged Turkey-Ukraine relations. They should examine whether these officials, knowingly or unknowingly, produced outcomes that help Russia’s interests.

A father should not be forced to fight alone against officials using state power. A journalist, writer and father of three young girls should not face pressure from security bureaucracy while trying to protect his children.

This process is being communicated to Turkish authorities

What happened is no longer only a personal wound. The events are being communicated to deputies in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, to relevant institutions of the Republic of Turkey and to responsible figures in Turkish public life. The matter has also been specially conveyed to President Erdoğan.

These events must not poison Turkey-Ukraine relations.

Ukraine must not lose Turkey.

Ukraine must not lose the Turkish people.

Turkey’s friendship is extremely valuable for Ukraine. Turkey stands with Ukraine not only through the state, but through its people, history, emotions and civil society.

But friendship cannot be protected by one side alone. If the Ukrainian state ignores mistreatment of Turkish citizens by some local officials, trust will be damaged. A warmer approach to Turkey does not mean only diplomatic statements. It means fair, respectful and lawful treatment of citizens of the Republic of Turkey.

Ukraine’s strongest weapon is justice

The whole world is trying to reunite families broken by war, protect children from war’s trauma and help civilians survive. In such a period, actions by some officials in Nikolaev that help break a family, keep children inside a war environment and separate a father from his children cannot be understood by the international public.

This picture harms Ukraine’s just cause. It risks serving the strategy of isolating Ukraine. It risks falling into the very propaganda framework Russia wants to build.

As Ukraine fights Russia on the front line, it must also ensure that its own institutions operate with law, humanity and strategic wisdom. War is not won only with tanks, drones and missiles. War is also won with justice, by protecting friends, by respecting children’s rights and by not breaking families.

My call is clear: investigate what I experienced in Nikolaev. Start proceedings against those responsible. Stop the bureaucratic and security-based misconduct that threatens to poison Turkey-Ukraine relations.

Ukraine must not lose its friends.

Ukraine must not lose Turkey.

Ukraine must not lose President Erdoğan’s friendship.

Because Ukraine’s strongest weapon is not only its army.

It is justice, conscience and the trust of its friends.

Yusuf Inan

WiseNewsPress.com

Yusuf Inan is a journalist and writer. He serves as Editor-in-Chief of UAPresa.com, WiseNewsPress.com, SehitlerOlmez.com and YerelGundem.com, and specializes in strategic and political analysis of Turkish and global affairs.