With the increasing involvement of Russia in the Syrian conflict, relations between Turkey and Russia have also soured, and a bitter taste has been left with the recent downing of a jet. As Assad's regime has weakened, Russia has begun directly intervening in Syria and Turkey has begun interpreting the relationship between Russia and Syria as a return of the Cold War years. Russia’s involvement in regional conflicts in general and in Syria in particular led people to establish similarities with the 1950s, as it benefits from the chaos in the region and aims to fill the gap left by the disengagement of the US.. In those years, as a new member of the NATO alliance, Turkey was very concerned by the ideological and military connections between the Soviet Union and Syria. With the longevity of the conflict in Syria and increasing involvement of Russia, there is the danger of a similar scenario—possibly in a different form—emerging in Turkish-Syrian relations.