The Russians, for their part, face a tough choice. You may think of Putin as an omnipotent decision-maker, but he is under tremendous pressure from all sides: his own ambition, wounded personal pride from a man he trusted, hard-liners in the administration and public fury. To not answer is a sign of weakness and is not in the Russian national character. But any strong answer may lead to disastrous consequences, bringing NATO and Russia to a catastrophe of much bigger and—God forbid—nuclear proportions.

Putin’s initiative to disarm Syria’s chemical arsenal was once a face-saving act for the Obama administration. Now there is a chance for the American president to save face for Putin, even though the idea may sound like nonsense to many in Washington. The recent meeting between Putin and Obama on the sidelines of the Paris climate conference showed no signs of progress in anti-terrorist unity on the ground, as the two parties continued to stick to their policies. But bad is called good when worse happens; this seems to be the case for Russian relations with the U.S. and Turkey.

The best way to defuse the situation is for the West to take measures to restrain the recklessness of its Turkish NATO partner and continue to urge Ankara to show its serious commitment to work against ISIL—not for the sake of Moscow, but for its own pragmatic reasons. Another crisis with Russia is not in anyone’s interest. The crisis came out of nowhere, with no particular security interests at stake or preconditions to threaten them. It is a crisis that Russia did not produce, but one that will keep major powers at one another’s throats—all while ISIL continues to gain strength and the tentacles of radical Islamism continue to creep across the region and the world.

Dr. Maxim A. Suchkov is an expert of the Russian International Affairs Council and a columnist for Al-Monitor’s Russia Pulse. He is the author of “Essays on Russian Foreign Policy in the Caucasus and the Middle East” (NOMOS Publishers, 2015). He was previously a Fulbright Visiting Fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies and Visiting Fellow at New York University. Follow him on Twitter: @Max_A_Suchkov.

Image: Wikimedia Commons/Alexander Mishin