For several days Turkey has been launching airstrikes against Kurdish and Yazidi militia positions in Syria and Iraq.
As a consequence the SDF has halted its operations around ISIS controlled al Raqqa and al Thawra . Another consequence is that serious fighting is escalating along Turkish / SDF front lines.
Turkey's actions have been condemned by the US , Russia and Iraq .
In my uniformed opinion, Turkey may be taking this action now to test the water and to give its army more time to prepare for further invasions of Northern Syria and Northern Iraq. As posted it is Erdogan's ambition to establish neo-Ottoman vassal states in these regions. To use his own words, "Mosul is Turkish".
Diplomatic double speak aside ..... the fact that Russian troops are embedded with the SDF/YPG in Afrin Canton and US troops are embedded with the SDF in North West Syria creates a reality of undeclared war between Turkey and Russia in North West Syria and an undeclared war between Turkey and the United States in North East Syria and along with an undeclared war between Turkey and Iraq.
The question for Trump and Putin is the same. Do they both just bend over and take it as a prelude to an ongoing war that neither the US, nor Russia not the EU .... or indeed any other party ... can afford?
