One would be forgiven to think that a regional cold war had been brewing across the Black Sea for the past decade. Russia and Turkey have supported opposing factions in Syria, the Caucasus, and Libya, and vie for influence in Central Asia and Georgia. Both have been responsible for killing the other side’s service members in past years. Turkey, a NATO member, has provided much-feared armed drones to Ukraine, which is being invaded by Russia. But appearances are deceiving – Moscow has never had a better ally in Ankara than Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Both Erdogan and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, found themselves in charge of their respective countries around the turn of the millennium. However, until 2016, their relationship was frosty. In 2015, it was at an all-time low after Turkey shot down a Russian jet entering its airspace from Syria. Russia was helping the government of Bashar al-Assad to defeat the Syrian opposition, which was backed by Ankara. In summer of 2016, however, Erdogan was besieged by an army coup, which failed. The Turkish government blamed the United States and Europe; Western leaders were slow to respond. Putin, on the other hand, was among the first to call the Turkish Prime Minster to show his support.
Since then, the Turco-Russian relationship has flourished. In 2017, Turkey defied Washington by investing $2.5 billion in a Russian anti-aircraft defense system, which brought with it an additional $9 billion in contract losses for the Turkish arms industry and the expulsion from the American F-35 jet program. State-owned Rosatom resumed work on a Russian-run nuclear plant on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast, which opened this year. The two countries also signed a gas-pipeline deal. By 2022, Russia was providing more than 45 percent of Turkey’s natural gas needs. On the other hand, Turkish contractors received around $40 billion in Russian projects until 2019. Erdogan has met with Putin more than with any other leader since 2016. That relationship was not seriously tested by the assassination of Russia’s ambassador to Turkey by a former bodyguard of Erdogan in late 2016, nor by a Russian airstrike in 2020 which killed at least 34 Turkish soldiers in Syria’s Idlib region.
It is true, Ankara and Moscow have been on opposite sides of a number of regional wars. But zoom in and their collusion in these arenas becomes apparent. The conflict in Libya is not of much importance to either side. Turkey has used the war to showcase its drones and deploy its private military contractors. Russia simply wants to deny the West a victory in North Africa. The picture is not much different in the Caucasus, where Turkey’s support for Azerbaijan’s aggressions against Armenia have put the Turkic pair one step closer to bullying Yerevan into giving them a direct land corridor, while making Armenia ever more dependent on Russian ‘peace keepers’ for protection.
The outcome of Syria’s conflict is of a more existential importance for both. Yet here, too, they have managed to cut deals. Turkish soldiers have acted as peace keepers for the Islamist opposition militia Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, while outright occupying much of the country’s north. Yet Russia and Turkey have never exchanged a shot. Instead, Ankara and Moscow have pursued a common policy of trying to push US forces out of Syria and curbing Kurdish control over the northeast, which Turkey invaded with Russia’s consent twice since 2016, and where Russian and Turkish military vehicles regularly patrol the frontlines. In the past few months, Erdogan has shown himself ready to sit down with al-Assad in order to hash out a lasting settlement. Russia has brokered preliminary talks.
Even Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has not significantly transformed the relationship – if anything, it has strengthened it. Ankara has made a show of sending its drones to Kiev. It has also closed the Dardanelles to Russia warships and denounced Russia’s aggression. Yet it has not followed the West’s suit in imposing sanctions on Russia. Erdogan held out on accepting Sweden and Finland into NATO for several months, eventually allowing only Finland to join, to its military partners’ chagrin. Russia’s global alienation has been Turkey’s blessing, as economic ties between the two autocracies have grown exponentially. Bilateral trade topped $50 billion in 2022, up from $34.7 billion before the invasion. Billions of rubles flow into Turkey each year through tourism. The amount has increased as Turkey has welcomed and sold citizenships to Russian draft dodgers and weary oligarchs.
What does the opposition say?
On May 14, Turkey will hold a nation-defining election. The opposition to Erdogan is united and leading, by the slimmest of margins, in the presidential polls. The main opposition candidate, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, promises to be everything Erdogan is not: humble, a supporter of a multicultural republic, more democratic, more economically prudent. How might that shape the Turco-Russian relationship?
Despite its rhetoric on internal issues, Kilicdaroglu’s camp has remained strikingly on course regarding Russia. Kilicdaroglu has made only tenuous statements in support of Ukraine, saying the invasion was “not right,” and pledging to impose sanctions only if they were voted through by the UN Security Council (where Russia enjoys permanent veto powers). The opposition’s strongest statement in support of the NATO alliance has been promising Sweden could accede within “weeks” should Kilicdaroglu win the presidency. However, it has also made clear that “Russia needs a respectable defeat [in Ukraine],” which would include ceding Crimea to Russia and some form of autonomy for Ukraine’s eastern provinces. The pro-Kurdish HDP, which does not form part of the opposition coalition but has lent its support to Kilicdaroglu, has also stated that it is against abandoning Turkey’s neutrality in the Ukraine war.
Kilicdaroglu has also vowed to uphold much of the rest of Turkey’s Erdogan-era policies towards Russia, such as keeping the Russian nuclear plant on its coast open, upholding Turkish-brokered agreement with Russia to allow Ukraine to export its grain, and leaving the country open to Russian investment. “The position of Russia in Turkish foreign policy is clear,” Kilicdaroglu said in a recent interview. “On the basis of mutual respect, I do not think there is a reason for this situation to change. On the contrary, I believe that existing positions will be further consolidated rather than facing new challenges.”
Turkey has become highly dependent on Russia for foreign investment and gas. If Kilicdaroglu hopes to repair the country’s broken economy, he will need Moscow. Moreover, the opposition, like Erdogan’s camp, has promised to rid the country of its roughly 4 million Syrian refugees. To do that, whichever government is voted in on May 14 will need Russian mediation.
On the campaign trail
Despite the minute differences in the two Turkish camps’ policies towards Russia, Putin has a clear favorite in next week’s elections. And he has not remained impartial. Russian state-owned companies have pumped billions of dollars into Turkey’s ailing economy in the run-up to the elections. Starting last summer, Rosatom wired billions of dollars to its Turkish subsidiary. The opposition around Kilicdaroglu has also accused Russia of interfering in the election by deferring payment of a gas deal worth $20 billion mere days before Turks will go to the polls, Al-Monitor reports. This year, Russia’s Central Bank said it could buy up currencies of “friendly countries,” such as Turkey. As one expert noted to Al-Monitor, “putting dollars in Turkish banks is not a move you’d make if you were motivated purely by financial metrics.” Putin has also pushed al-Assad to sit down with Erdogan before May 14 in order to hash out a deal, but to no avail.
In Erdogan, the Russian president has found a fellow autocrat with whom he can make business. Despite Turkey’s membership in NATO – or rather because of it – Ankara’s aloofness has provided Russia some economic respite. While the opposition has so far not made any move to antagonize the Russian colossus, it is likelier to be swayed by the West. Kilicdaroglu has promised to return Turkey into the Western fold, improving its relationships with the EU, NATO, and the US. His video addresses to the country’s youth have at times resembled those of Alexei Navalny, an imprisoned Russian opposition leader, in their willingness to criticize the government and break with societal taboos (though the former, filmed in his kitchen, lack the glitz of the latter). A resurgence of liberal democracy in a country as strategically-positioned as Turkey has raised red flags in Moscow.
The Turkish opposition is also deeply divided. The coalition includes social democrats and far-right nationalist – and it will likely depend on the Kurdish vote to win; its only discernable common policy is their opposition to the current president. It will prove near-impossible for Putin to settle wars or fund mega projects on a handshake, as has been the case for the past decade. Yet Putin will likely not do anything to antagonize the Turkish opposition too much. This would risk a complete breakdown in the Turkish-Russian relationship should the anti-Erdogan camp win. Instead, Putin will have to patiently await for Turkey’s voters to make their choice.