Hell of the East

B1. 04 In this alternate future, the dispute and arguments between Turkey and the United States of America lead the Presidential Republic to leave NATO in favor of its alliance with Russia. Tensions between Italy and Turkey about the drilling rights west of Cyprus continued to rise during the last months. Due to growing military actions from the Turkish armed forces in the contested waters, Greece agreed to allow the Italian forces to field it's air defense batteries and part of it's air force in Greek territories and move it's Ocean-Capable fleet in International waters. On the 24th of February 2019 the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan during a public meeting with Vladimir Putin stated: “No other violations of the Turkish right from foreign countries will be tolerated and we are ready to use force to protect the Turkish waters.” At which the following day, the Italian Minister of Interior Matteo Salvini, answered: “We will no longer allow other nations to interfere with Italian companies interests, we have the authorization from the legitimate government of Cyprus of scouting for fossil fuels on their Economic Exclusion Zone so we will keep going with our drilling operations.” At this point the majority of Italian fighter fleet has been already stationed on the Greek Air Bases covered by the Italian air defense systems and the whole Turkish Air Force is in high alert. The 2nd of March 2019 the Turkish Fregate F-491 Giresun opened fire with its Oto Melara 76mm gun on the drilling ship Saipem 12000 sinking it, this was the last straw for the Italian Head of State Sergio Mattarella that declared war on Turkey The 3rd of March 2019 Turkey declared war on Italy by Roby7979