Turkey Blocks Exports To Russia

It fell by almost 30%.

The threat of secondary US sanctions against Turkish banks accepting payments from Russia has hit Russian-Turkish trade hard.

According to the results of January-June 2024, exports of goods from Turkey to Russia fell by 28.3% year-on-year, to $4.16 billion. In particular, in June, the figure fell by almost 30% compared to the same month last year, to $670 million against $956 million, respectively. This follows from data from the Turkish statistical agency TurkStat, cited by RBC.

Turkey has also reduced imports of goods from Russia. The indicator decreased by 10.3% year-on-year, to $22.04 billion. At the same time, in June, Turkey's imports from Russia even increased — by 1.2% compared to June last year, to $2.95 billion. The main share of Russian imports still falls on energy resources, but even they were affected by problems with payments. In particular, as Reuters wrote in March, due to the freezing of payments in Turkish banks, supplies of Russian oil were disrupted, including to India, China and the UAE.

Also, according to the Turkish Energy Market Regulatory Board (EPDK), Turkey has sharply reduced gas imports from Russia. In April, Turkish importers purchased only 413 million cubic meters of pipeline gas from Gazprom — 3.6 times less than in the same month a year ago (1.523 billion cubic meters). Turkish companies refused Russian LNG altogether: in April, the country's ports did not accept a single tanker with raw materials from the Russian Federation.

Problems with bank payments between Russia and Turkey arose at the end of 2023. Then US President Joe Biden signed an executive order allowing the US Treasury Department to impose secondary sanctions against third-country credit institutions for cooperation with Russian sanctioned companies and assistance to the military-industrial complex (MIC)

of Russia. In June of this year, the US included in the definition of the MIC of the Russian Federation all companies and all individuals who had previously been sanctioned. Against this background, the Kremlin complained about “completely unprecedented, overt and aggressive pressure” on Turkey from the US. They also assured that they were conducting a dialogue with the Turkish authorities and looking for ways to solve the problem.

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