ВЛИЯНИЕ УКРАИНСКОГО КОНФЛИКТА НА ЭКОНОМИЧЕСКИЕ ОТНОШЕНИЯ ТУРЦИИ И РОССИИ

Abstract

Russia and Türkiye have enjoyed strong economic relations since the beginning of the 21st century despite various regional crises. The Ukraine crisis has been an issue between Moscow and Ankara since 2014 even though it did not affect the relations significantly. In February 2022, the crisis turned into a direct military conflict between Moscow and Kiev which led to considerable global consequences. Türkiye chose to remain neutral in this conflict and refused to participate in the Western sanctions. Since the beginning of the Ukraine conflict, Turkish-Russian economic relations have been a significant matter as the economy constitutes the main pillar of bilateral relations and the relations also have serious implications for the West. This article investigates the Ukraine conflict’s impacts on the economic relations between Russia and Türkiye. The Ukraine conflict caused various positive and negative consequences for different economic aspects such as trade, energy, tourism, the defence industry and the construction sector while the conflict also brought about some threats and opportunities for Turkish-Russian economic relations. This study utilized primary sources including statistics regarding the economic data, reports about the topic and secondary sources such as previous academic articles. As a result, this study concluded that the economic relations between the two states continued to thrive despite the Ukraine conflict. This was thanks to Türkiye’s neutral stance in the Ukraine conflict and the two states’ compartmentalization policy. On the other hand, the asymmetrical interdependence between Russia and Türkiye further intensified during the Ukraine conflict in 2022 as the increase in Russia’s exports to Türkiye surpassed Türkiye’s exports to Russia by far.