At around dawn this past Tuesday, a rapid series of airstrikes pulverized a military headquarters located on a hill overlooking Afrin’s Cuma plain. This attack, carried out by the Russian Air Force against Turkish-backed Islamist opposition faction Faylaq al-Sham, was the first of its kind. Since the Afrin region was captured by Turkey and its proxies in March 2018 it has not been targeted by Russian or Syrian regime air raids. Furthermore, these airstrikes likely represent the first time the base of a Turkish proxy located in the Afrin or Euphrates Shield regions has been attacked by manned aircraft. While it is difficult to ascertain how this August 31st attack factors into the logic of the cryptic and transactional Russian-Turkish relationship, it occurred within the context of increased