Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Turkey has rapidly become one of Moscow’s most important partners — a relationship that has helped keep the Russian economy afloat. The impressive trade figures have not, however, matured into a strategic partnership. Ankara continues to import substantial volumes from Russia on pragmatic grounds, but it constantly checks that course against Western positions and the broader international environment — and that environment is not always working in the Kremlin’s favor.
Exports and durable ties
2022 marked a turning point in Russian-Turkish trade. Western sanctions forced the Kremlin to look, in haste, for ways out of international isolation. Expanding economic cooperation with Turkey became one of the main answers. Turnover, which stood at $ 33 billion in 2021, rose to $ 68 billion in 2022. Since then Ankara has been a fixture in Moscow’s top three trading partners, behind China and competing with India for second place.
The structure of Russian exports to Turkey differs markedly from shipments to other countries in the region, where grain usually dominates. Russia sells Turkey oil, gas, coal and petroleum products first and foremost; these account for around 70 percent of all deliveries. Ankara uses the goods not only for domestic consumption but also for re-export. Analysts have reported, in particular, that Russian petroleum products have reached the European market via Turkey.
Agri-food products rank second: in 2025 they were worth about $ 3.8 billion, or roughly 9 percent of Russian exports. Steel and pig iron follow at $ 3.4 billion. Copper and aluminum are also significant categories, at $ 1.28 billion and $ 1.06 billion respectively.
An important stimulus for the expansion of trade has been Rosatom’s construction of the Akkuyu nuclear power plant on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast, a project worth $ 20−25 billion. Machinery, steel and pig iron are supplied for the site. Investment has reinforced the economic relationship: Russian inflows into the Turkish economy since 2022 are estimated at $ 4−6 billion. Russians have consistently ranked first among foreign buyers on Turkey’s property market. Tourism remains a substantial factor as well: 6−7 million Russians visit the country each year, helping to build the personal ties that matter so much in business.
The large Russian export flow to Turkey should not be dismissed as a purely situational spike. The peak came in 2022 ($ 58.8 billion). Volumes then declined, but they have remained high and relatively stable: $ 45.6 billion in 2023, $ 44 billion in 2024 and $ 42.4 billion in 2025. The foundation for continued economic cooperation is still in place. The relationship is hardly cloudless, however. Friction exists in both politics and economics.
Western pressure
The pragmatism of Turkey’s leadership was never going to allow the country to draw closer to Russia while ignoring Western pressure altogether. The benefits of working with Moscow are obvious to Ankara, but Turkey is deeply embedded in the international economy: the share of foreign trade in GDP has fluctuated between 50 and 80 percent over the past decade. Dependence on the West is no smaller than dependence on Russia. The EU accounts for more than 40 percent of Turkish exports and around 35 percent of imports. European and American firms provide more than 70 percent of foreign direct investment. To service external debt and cover the current-account deficit, Ankara relies first and foremost on Western capital markets. It therefore cannot fully disregard Western sanctions.
As a result, since 2022 Turkey has taken several steps that have appreciably constrained economic ties with Russia. Still under the Biden administration, Ankara stopped accepting Mir payment cards, blocked the transit of sanctioned goods to Russia and significantly restricted financial operations with Russian counterparties.
The restrictions have had serious consequences. Turkish exports to Russia have fallen sharply. In 2022−2023 they stood at $ 9.3−10.9 billion; by the end of 2024 they had dropped to $ 8.5 billion, and in 2025 to $ 6.7 billion. Shipments of equipment and electronics have been hit especially hard, roughly halving between 2023 and 2025. Auto parts have followed a similar trajectory. Food exports have held up in absolute terms, but against a shrinking overall import bill their share has risen and now exceeds 20 percent.
Ankara has proceeded carefully, so as not to shut down the most important channels of cooperation with Russia. In recent years Turkey has become one of the world’s largest hubs for the re-export of food. The key factor is cheap Russian grain, which is processed into flour and then shipped to the Middle East and Africa. Preserving those supplies is in Ankara’s interest. A similar logic applies to gas. Turkey is trying to reduce its dependence on Russia and diversify purchases, but the Russian share still stands at just under 40 percent, and Ankara is not yet prepared to walk away from cooperation with Moscow in this area.
Political fault lines
The main contradictions between Turkey and Russia lie in the political sphere. Ankara has not only publicly condemned the aggression against Ukraine; it has given Kyiv real military support. Turkish weapons supplied to the Armed Forces of Ukraine include Bayraktar TB2 drones, BMC Kirpi armored vehicles, mortars and ammunition. The Kremlin has repeatedly voiced its displeasure. Turkey’s economic importance to Russia is now so great, however, that Moscow cannot afford a sharper response.
The same line has shaped Ankara’s policy on the Black Sea. Turkey has no interest in Russian dominance of the basin. Immediately after the full-scale invasion it invoked the Montreux Convention and closed the straits to warships of the belligerents. Russia’s Black Sea Fleet was thereby cut off from the rest of the navy. That constrained the Kremlin’s options in the war against Ukraine and complicated rotation in Syria, where Russia still maintained a naval base at Tartus.
At the same time, Ankara does not want a larger NATO military presence in the Black Sea either, lest the region become another theatre of confrontation between Moscow and the West. Turkey’s position is explained less by a desire to support Ukraine than by an ambition to become the leading Black Sea power and to shape developments in the region. What is at stake is the aggregate of Turkish influence in this zone — influence that has only grown against the backdrop of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Syria has been another theatre of rivalry. Turkey’s allies — Islamists led by Ahmad al-Sharaa — have almost entirely squeezed the Kremlin out of the country. After the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, the Russian presence began to shrink rapidly. The August 2026 agreements on converting Russian military bases into training centers give Moscow a chance to retain some remnant of influence. In practice this is a last attempt to preserve fragments of the old arrangement: giving up a full military presence in exchange for the right to transit Russian cargo aircraft through Syria to Africa (Russian transport aircrafts need a refueling stop for air deliveries).
A further zone of competition is the South Caucasus. After the 2020 war and the 2023 operation, Azerbaijan regained control over the whole of Nagorno-Karabakh. That locked in a regional shift in favor of Turkey, Baku’s principal ally. The change has unfolded against a cooling of Moscow’s relations with both Armenia and Azerbaijan, and against a growing U.S. role in the settlement of Armenian-Azerbaijani disputes. In public, the contradictions here have looked less acute than those over Ukraine or Syria. But this is a region of first-order importance to Moscow, sitting directly on its borders.
Among the notable developments of 2026 have been Turkey’s efforts to find a buyer for Russia’s S-400 air-defense systems in order to return to the American F-35 program. The systems had been a symbol of Ankara’s multi-vector policy and of its special relationship with Russia. Under present conditions, however, the Turkish authorities appear to be leaning towards a more pro-American course in armaments. The question is not yet closed, but Moscow has already expressed concern: such a deal would be another step by Ankara towards the West.
Four years on
Political contradictions between Russia and Turkey have, if anything, intensified in recent years. Ankara is gradually pushing Moscow out of its familiar spheres of influence — in the Middle East, the South Caucasus and, to some extent, the Black Sea region.
The pragmatism characteristic of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has produced a complex configuration of relations with the Kremlin. Economic cooperation, despite some decline from the 2022 peak, remains far larger than in the pre-war period. Given the depth of that interdependence, there is little reason to expect Ankara to distance itself abruptly from Russia in trade and investment. As Turkey has made clear, however, economic rapprochement does not constrain it in its political rivalry with Moscow.
Meanwhile the conjuncture is gradually shifting against the Kremlin. That is visible both in the gradual contraction of bilateral trade and in Ankara’s new steps towards the West and NATO.
