Russia–Turkey relations



Russia–Turkey relations (Российско–турецкие отношения; Rusya–Türkiye ilişkileri) are the bilateral relations between Russia and Turkey and their antecedent states. Relations between the two are rather cyclical. From the late 16th until the early 20th centuries, relations between the Ottoman and Russian empires were normally adverse and hostile and the two powers were engaged in numerous Russo-Turkish wars, including one of the longest wars in modern history. Russia attempted to extend its influence in the Balkans and gain control of the Bosphorus at the expense of the weakening Ottoman Empire. As a result, the diplomatic history between the two powers was extremely bitter and acrimonious up to World War I. However, in the early 1920s, as a result of the Bolshevik Russian government's assistance to Turkish revolutionaries during the Turkish War of Independence, the governments' relations warmed. Relations again turned sour at the end of WWII as the Soviet government laid territorial claims and demanded other concessions from Turkey. Turkey joined NATO in 1952 and placed itself within the Western alliance against the Warsaw Pact during the Cold War, when relations between the two countries were at their lowest level. Relations began to improve the following year, when the Soviet Union renounced its territorial claims after the death of Stalin.

Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, relations between Turkey and Russia improved significantly and the two countries came to rank among each other's largest trade partners. Russia became Turkey's largest provider of energy, while many Turkish companies began to operate in Russia. In the 1990s, Turkey became the top foreign destination for Russian tourists.

However, both countries still stand on opposite ends when it comes to foreign policy, especially in tense issues such as the Syrian Civil War, the Kosovo conflict and have opposing views on the Armenian genocide. Relations were tense following the Russian fighter jet shootdown in November 2015, becoming normalised again in 2016. As a close partner of both Russia and Ukraine, Turkey is actively attempting to broker a peaceful solution to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, and has hosted a number of high-profile negotiations between the two countries. Turkey is currently the only NATO member which is not on Russia's unfriendly countries list.

Early history
Slavic and Turkic peoples have been in contact for centuries along the Eurasian Steppe. Medieval Turkic kingdoms like Khazaria, Cumania, Volga Bulgaria, the Kipchak Khanate, the Khanate of Kazan, the Crimean Khanate, the Astrakhan Khanate and the Khanate of Sibir were established in parts of present-day Russia, with a continuing demographic, genetic, linguistic and cultural legacy.

The Turks in Anatolia were separated from Russia by the Black Sea and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth to the northwest and the Caucasus mountains to the east. The Turks founded the Ottoman Empire in Anatolia and began expanding outwards, while Russia was doing the same. The two empires began a series of clashes over the Black Sea basin.

The conquest of Constantinople in 1453 by the Ottomans marked the end of the Christian Byzantine Empire, and Russia became the seat of the Eastern Orthodox Church and its rulers inherited the Byzantine legacy.

Clashes of empires


Starting in 1549, the Ottoman Empire's support for smaller Turkic and Islamic vassal states in modern Russia (the Astrakhan Khanate, the Crimean Khanate, etc.) brought the two empires into conflict. The Black Sea was under Ottoman control when the Russians began their offensive against the Turks. In 1696 Peter the Great took Azov, but many more battles lay ahead. The Russo-Turkish War (1768-74) resulted in the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca in 1774. This treaty granted Russia passage to the Black Sea, making it possible for Russia to gain access to the Mediterranean Sea. It also allowed the Russians the privilege to intervene in the Ottoman Empire on the behalf of the Eastern Orthodox Christian populations. By the 19th century, Russia was helping Turkey's Slavic and Christian minorities to revolt against Ottoman rule. Russia did not always have in mind the goal of partitioning the Ottoman state, fearing this would aid the expansion plans of the Austrian Empire in the Balkan peninsula, which was largely Orthodox. Eventually, however, the desire for free passage through the Turkish Straits and Pan-Slavist feeling at home pushed Russia in that direction, leading to the decisive intervention in 1877–78.

The Russian goal of controlling the Straits and gaining access to the Mediterranean led to a determination to weaken the Ottoman Empire at every point. That meant further support of Austria against Germany, as Berlin was increasingly supportive of Constantinople. It meant Russian support for the Balkan states of Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, and Montenegro that were fighting Turkey in a series of wars around 1910. It meant encouraging Italy to wrest control of Tripoli from the Ottomans in 1911. The crisis came in the summer of 1914 when Austria threatened Serbia and Russia decided to give all out-support to Serbia. In a matter of days that led to war between Russia and France against Germany and Austria. Britain and the Ottoman Empire joined in, and the Russian army did very poorly on the Eastern front. The two empires fought each other for the last time during World War I. The Russian Caucasus campaign started on 1 November 1914 with the Russian invasion of Turkish Armenia. In February 1917, the Russian advance was halted following the Russian Revolution. The Russian Caucasus Army soon disintegrated and was replaced by the forces of the newly established Armenian state. The war ended with the regimes of both empires being overthrown.

Friendship between the world wars
The Soviet Union and the new Turkish governments were outsiders to the great powers and gravitated toward each other after World War I. According to Onur Işçi:"Beginning in 1920, bitterness against the postwar international order drove Soviet-Turkish relations. Nationalist Turks and internationalist Bolsheviks laid to rest four centuries of rivalry between their imperial predecessors as they found themselves in a convergence that each side defined as anti-imperialist. At the heart of their cooperation was a geopolitical alignment that sought to shield the greater Black Sea region from Western intrusions. .... All the way up to the final hours of peace in 1939, the first principle that guided Turkish diplomacy was good neighborly relations with Moscow in the context of friendship rather than subordination."

The Ottoman government signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk between the Bolshevik government of Russia and the Central Powers on March 3, 1918, but it became obsolete later that year. Russian Bolsheviks and the Soviet government were led by Vladimir Lenin, who emerged victorious from the Russian Civil War by 1921 and viewed the Turkish revolutionary (national) movement under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal as congenial to their ideological and geopolitical aspirations. Lenin's government abdicated the traditional claims of the Russian Empire to the territories of Western Armenia and the Turkish Straits.

The Soviet supply of gold and armaments to the Kemalists in 1920 to 1922 was a key factor in the latter's successful takeover of the Ottoman Empire, which had been defeated by the Triple Entente but won the Armenian campaign (1920) and the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922).

The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic was the first state that formally recognised the Kemalist government of Turkey in March 1921 after the Republic of Armenia which signed the Treaty of Alexandropol with the Turkish revolutionaries on 2 December 1920. The Treaty of Moscow, signed on 16 March 1921 between Lenin's government and the Grand National Assembly of Turkey government (although the Sultanate was still nominally in existence), followed bilateral treaties that the Moscow government concluded with Persia and Afghanistan earlier that year (apart from those with the states on the territory of the former Russian Empire).

Under the 1921 Treaty of Moscow, the two governments undertook to establish friendly relations between the countries. Under Article II, Turkey ceded Batum and the adjacent area north of the village of Sarp to Soviet Georgia (Kars Oblast went to Turkey). Article III instituted an autonomous Nakhchivan oblast under Soviet Azerbaijan's protectorate. Article V had the parties agree to delegate the final elaboration of the status of the Black Sea and the Turkish Straits to a future conference of delegates of the littoral states if the "full sovereignty" and security of Turkey and "her capital city of Constantinople" were not injured. The Treaty of Moscow was followed by an identical Treaty of Kars signed in October 1921 by the Kemalists with Soviet Armenia, Soviet Azerbaijan and Soviet Georgia, which formed part of the Soviet Union after the December 1922 Treaty on the Creation of the Soviet Union.

On 16 December 1925, the Turkish government withdrew its delegation, which let the League of Nations Council grant a mandate for the disputed region of Mosul to Britain without its consent. Kemal countered the diplomatic reverse by concluding a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union on 17 December. The pact was later amended and prolonged and then was prolonged again for another ten years on November 7, 1935. The key episode was agreement on the Montreux Convention in July 1936 in which Turkey regained control over the Straits, which it was allowed to remilitarise.

In parallel to the fluctuating bilateral relations, the communist leaders, party functionaries, diplomats and scholars paid close attention to the origins, evolution and transformational phases of Kemalism.



World War II and postwar
Turkey officially remained neutral during World War II until 23 February 1945, but the Soviets viewed the Turkish continued relationship with Nazi Germany, whose warships were allowed passage through the Straits, as inimical to itself. On 19 March 1945, Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov advised Turkey's ambassador in Moscow that the Soviets were unilaterally withdrawing from the 1925 Non-Aggression Pact. The decision was explained by asserting that "due to the deep changes that had occurred especially during World War II" the treaty did not cohere with "the new situation and needed serious improvement". The Turkish government was subsequently informed by Molotov that in addition to bases in the Straits, the Soviet Union also claimed a part of eastern Turkey, which was assumed to refer to the districts of Kars, Artvin and Ardahan, which the Russian Empire (and the short-lived Democratic Republic of Armenia) had held between 1878 and 1921.

At the Potsdam Conference (July 1945), Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin demanded a revision of the Montreux Convention. The Soviets' demand to be allowed to join in the defense of the Straits was rejected by Turkey, with the backing of the West. In March 1947, with the proclamation of the Truman Doctrine, the United States underwrote the frontiers of Turkey (as well as Greece) and the continued existence of non-communist governments in the two countries. Turkey sought aid from the United States and joined NATO in 1952. The Soviet Union and Turkey were in different camps during the Korean War and throughout the Cold War.

1990–present
Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia was now a much smaller non-Communist nation. Relations improved and on May 25, 1992, a visit to Moscow by Turkish Prime Minister Süleyman Demirel saw the signing of a Russian-Turkish treaty.

Disagreements regarding the border dispute over the Caucasus and support of each other's historic adversaries both linger. However both countries are key strategic partners in the Transcaucasian region.

In May 2009, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan flew to Sochi, Russia for a working visit with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin at which he stated, “Turkey and Russia have responsibilities in the region. We have to take steps for the peace and well-being of the region. This includes the Nagorno-Karabakh problem, the Middle East dispute, the Cyprus problem.” Putin responded that, “Russia and Turkey seek for such problems to be resolved and will facilitate this in every way,” but, “As for difficult problems from the past – and the Karabakh problem is among such issues – a compromise should be found by the participants in the conflict. Other states which help reach a compromise in this aspect can play a role of mediators and guarantors to implement the signed agreements.” Whilst on the subject of energy security Erdoğan stated that, “The agreement on gas supplies through the so-called Western route signed in 1986 is expiring in 2012. We have agreed today to immediately start work to prolong this agreement.” In May 2010, the visit by the Russian President Medvedev to Turkey saw the signing of numerous deals such as the lifting of visa requirements. A multibillion-dollar deal was signed for the construction of a nuclear power plant in Akkuyu, Mersin.

According to a November 2018 INR poll, 51% of Turks view Russia favorably and 43% view it unfavorably. In 2022, the independent Levada Center found that 68% of Russians have a positive attitude towards Turkey, compared to 20% who have a negative view.

2015 aircraft shootdown incident
On 24 November 2015, within weeks of the start of the Russian military intervention in support of Syria's President Bashar al-Assad, Turkish F-16 combat aircraft shot down a Russian Su-24 during an airspace dispute close to the Turkish-Syrian border. Russian President Vladimir Putin described the incident as "a stab in the back by the accomplices of terrorists" and further stated that "today's tragic events will have significant consequences including for relations between Russia and Turkey".

In response, Russia imposed a number of economic sanctions on Turkey. These included the suspension of visa-free travel to Russia for Turkish citizens, limits on Turkish residents and companies doing business in Russia and restrictions on imports of Turkish products. Russian tour operators were discouraged from selling Turkish package holidays and asked to stop charter flights to Turkey while Russian football clubs were banned from signing Turkish players and discouraged from organizing winter training camps in Turkey. The day after the jet was shot down, a Russian law-maker, Sergei Mironov, introduced a bill to the Russian parliament that would criminalize the denial of the Armenian genocide, a political move that Turkey has strongly opposed when countries like France and Greece adopted similar laws.

The Pan-Orthodox Council, which had been originally scheduled to be held in Istanbul's Hagia Irene in 2016 had to be shifted to Crete, Greece, after the Russian Orthodox Church indicated that it did not want to go to Turkey due to the crisis between the two countries following the downing of the Russian jet.

Normalisation of ties and beyond: 2016–present


The process of normalisation of ties between the two countries was started in June 2016 with Recep Erdoğan expressing regret to Putin for the downing of the Russian warplane. Putin and Erdoğan held a telephone conversation on 29 June which was described as being productive by Russian and Turkish government officials. The Russian government later lifted the travel restrictions on Russian citizens visiting Turkey and ordered normalisation of trade ties.

On 9 August 2016, the countries′ leaders held a meeting in St Petersburg, Russia, which was described by a commentator as a ″clear-the-air summit″ — the first time the pair met since they fallout over the Russian fighter jet downing by the Turkish air force as well as Erdoğan's first trip abroad since the failed coup attempt in Turkey. The BBC commented that the summit, at which Erdoğan thanked Putin for his swift support during the coup attempt, ″unnerved the West″.

Following the assassination of Russian ambassador to Turkey Andrei Karlov on 19 December 2016, the countries′ leaders sought to contain any possible damage to relations between the two countries. In December 2016, the two countries initiated the Astana peace talks on Syria peace settlement, subsequently, along with Iran, agreeing to create de-escalation zones in Syria.

On 9 February 2017 Russian air strike kills three Turkish soldiers by mistake.

On 31 May 2017, Russia lifted most of the sanctions it had imposed on Turkey, which includes lifted restrictions on Turkish companies operating in Russia and ended a ban on employing Turkish workers in the country. It also ended an embargo on a range of Turkish imports. President Putin also restored a bilateral agreement on visa-free movement between the two countries.

During Putin's visit to Ankara at the end of September 2017, the Turkish and Russian presidents said they agreed to closely cooperate on ending Syria's civil war. Vladimir Putin's visit to Ankara in December that year was the third face-to-face meeting between the countries′ leaders in less than a month and their seventh in a year. In 2018, Russia criticized the Turkish invasion of northern Syria aimed at ousting U.S.-backed Syrian Kurds from the enclave of Afrin.

In June 2018, the Russian government-controlled news agency Sputnik, shut down its website in Kurdish language without mentioning any particular reason for the decision. Former employees of Sputnik said that the news agency decided to shut it down at Turkey's request.

In mid-August 2018, Russia and Turkey backed one another in their respective disputes with the United States. Russia condemned U.S. sanctions against Turkey over the detention of Andrew Brunson, while Turkey stated its opposition to U.S. sanctions on Russia over the annexation of Crimea and interference in the 2016 U.S. elections.

In addition, Turkey and Russia also shared foreign policy on the Venezuelan presidential crisis in January 2019, supporting the regime of Nicolás Maduro as the legitimate government of Venezuela, opposing Western-supported opposition government led by Juan Guaidó.



Turkish foreign minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu stated that Turkey was not going to have to choose between Russia and the United States.

Russian President Vladimir Putin initially expressed comparative neutrality to the 2019 Turkish offensive into north-eastern Syria, stating that Turkey has a right to defend itself, but called upon foreign militaries with what he described as an illegal presence in Syria to leave. On 15 October, Putin declared a much harsher stance, denouncing the Turkish invasion as 'unacceptable' and deploying Russian troops to the frontline. On 13 November, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said that US pushed Gulf countries to finance the creation of a quasi-state on the Eastern Euphrates.

On 1 October 2020, Turkey issued a statement dismissing the joint demands from France, Russia, and the United States calling for a ceasefire in the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

On 19 March 2021, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan criticized Joe Biden for calling Russian President Vladimir Putin a killer. According to Erdoğan, Putin gave a very smart and graceful response.

Russia has expressed support for normalization of Armenia–Turkey relations for regional stability.

In March 2022, Turkey expressed its hopes that Russia will not adopt a negative stand amid talks to resurrect the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which were halted due to a last-minute demand by Moscow, according to Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu.

On 2 June 2022, Russia's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova warned that Turkey's invasion of northern Syria "would be a direct violation of Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity" and would "cause a further escalation of tensions in Syria."

In February 2024, President Erdoğan and members of the Turkish government declined to comment on the death of Russian opposition leader and political prisoner Alexei Navalny. The Turkish authorities in Istanbul did not allow a gathering of Russians in exile to honor Navalny.

Russian invasion of Ukraine
On 3 February 2022, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey volunteered to organize a Ukraine-Russia conference during a visit to Ukraine, as EU leaders increased up outreach to the Kremlin to calm worries of a Russian invasion. On 24 February, after the invasion started, Erdoğan expressed his support for Ukraine. On 25 February, on the other hand, the Republic of Turkey abstained from voting on Russia's suspension from the Council of Europe as it calls for open dialogue between the parties under any circumstances. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu also reiterated Turkey's "readiness to host negotiations that could take place between the Russian Federation and Ukraine," accordingly.

On 27 February 2022, Cavusoglu stated that Turkey shifted its terminology to refer to Russia's assault on Ukraine as a "war," and committed to enforce elements of the 1936 Montreux Convention's international pact which allows Turkey to prohibit all warships of the belligerent forces, including those of the Russian navy, from entering the Bosporus and Dardanelles and thus hinder Russian vessels' transit from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea. On 28 February, President Erdoğan publicly confirmed that the straits would be closed to prevent an escalation of the war, while also pledging to maintain relations with both Ukraine and Russia. On March 10, Messrs Sergei Lavrov and Dmytro Kuleba, the top diplomats of the Russian Federation and of Ukraine, have personally met in the Mediterranean province of Antalya in Turkey in the first high-level contact between the two sides since the beginning of the skirmishes in April. The meeting between Lavrov and Kuleba took place on the sidelines of a significant diplomacy forum gathering professionals who deal with diplomacy such as political leaders, diplomats, opinion makers, authors and academics. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu also participated. Mr Cavusoglu has said the aim of the diplomatic meeting is "to pave the way," for a meeting between the Russian and Ukrainian presidents, which would be facilitated by Turkey's president.

Turkey has been actively involved in mediation efforts in the 2022 Russian-Ukrainian War due to its important relations with both countries. Ukraine has asked both Israel and Turkey to set up talks with Russia for negotiations.

Turkey has provided Ukraine with Bayraktar drones since 2019, which played a significant role in deterring Russian advances in the early stages of the 2022 Russian-Ukrainian War, but has not imposed sanctions on Russia for the conflict.

On 17 March 2022, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu expressed hope for a humanitarian ceasefire in the southern Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, where he claimed more than 100 Turkish citizens remained.

On 20 March 2022, Turkey's foreign minister stated that Russia and Ukraine were close to reaching an agreement on "important" issues, and that he hoped for a ceasefire if the two sides did not reverse their previous advances.

In February 2024, the European Union proposed sanctions that would target Turkish companies aiding Russia's war effort in Ukraine.

Black Sea Grain Initiative
On 17 July 2022, Russian, Ukrainian and Turkish military delegations met with United Nations officials in Istanbul to start talks on the resumption of exports of Ukrainian grain from the Black Sea port of Odesa. On 22 July 2022, Russian and Ukrainian officials have signed the deal to allow grain exports from Ukrainian Black Sea ports. Under the agreement, a coalition of Turkish, Ukrainian and UN staff will monitor the loading of grain into vessels in Ukrainian ports, to allay Russian fears of weapons smuggling before navigating a preplanned route through the Black Sea, which remains heavily mined by Ukrainian and Russian forces. On 29 October 2022, Russia said it was suspending its participation in the grain deal, in response to what it called a major Ukrainian drone attack on its Black Sea fleet at the Crimean naval port of Sevastopol. On 1 November 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia would consider resuming the grain deal after a completion of an investigation of the drone attacks. On 2 November 2022, Russia stated that it would resume its participation in the initiative.

Economic relations
In order to contribute to Turkey’s economic development, contracts have been concluded with Russia for the construction of the Akkuyu nuclear power plant and the TurkStream gas pipeline.

On May 12, 2010, the government of the Russian Federation and the republic of Turkey signed a Cooperation Agreement providing for the construction of Akkuyu nuclear power plant, comprising four power units with VVER-1200 reactors with a total capacity of 4800 MW on the southern coast of Turkey in Mersin province.

In October 2016, an intergovernmental agreement for TurkStream was signed. Construction started in May 2017 and gas deliveries to Bulgaria through the pipeline began on January 1, 2020. TurksStream changes the regional gas flows in South-East Europe by diverting the transit through Ukraine and the Trans Balkan Pipeline system.

In 2022, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said that Turkey could not join sanctions on Russia because of import dependency. Turkey received almost half of its gas from Russia. Erdoğan and Putin planned for Turkey to become an energy hub for all of Europe. According to Aura Săbăduș, a senior energy journalist focusing on the Black Sea region, "Turkey would accumulate gas from various producers — Russia, Iran and Azerbaijan, [liquefied natural gas] and its own Black Sea gas — and then whitewash it and relabel it as Turkish. European buyers wouldn’t know the origin of the gas."

Military relations
On 12 September 2017, Turkey announced that it had signed a deal to purchase the Russian S-400 surface-to-air missile system; the deal was characterised by American press as ″the clearest sign of [Recep Erdoğan]′s pivot toward Russia and away from NATO and the West" that ″cements a recent rapprochement with Russia″. Despite pressure to cancel the deal on the part of the Trump administration, in April 2018 the scheduled delivery of the S-400 batteries had been brought forward from the first quarter of 2020 to July 2019.

In September 2019, Russia sent the Sukhoi Su-35S and the 5th Generation stealth fighter Su-57 to Turkey for Technofest Istanbul 2019. The jets landed at Turkey's Atatürk Airport, weeks after Recep Tayyip Erdoğan went to Moscow and discussed stealth fighter with Vladimir Putin.

In November 2021, Russia offered assistance to Turkey in developing new-generation fighter jet to Turkey. Some Turkish officials have also shown interest to buy Russian jets if the US F-16 deal fails.

Resident diplomatic missions

 * Russia has an embassy in Ankara and consulates-general in Istanbul, Antalya and Trabzon.
 * Turkey has an embassy in Moscow and consulates-general in Saint Petersburg, Kazan and Novorossiysk.

Diplomatic missions

 * Embassy of Russia in Ankara
 * Embassy of Turkey in Moscow
 * Consulate-General of Russia in Antalya
 * Consulate-General of Russia in Istanbul
 * Consulate-General of Russia in Trabzon
 * Consulate-General of Turkey in Kazan
 * Consulate-General of Turkey in Saint Petersburg