On the surface it may seem wise for Turkey to 'sit on the fence' whilst also providing Ukraine with aid such TB-2 ammunition.
However, on reflection this strategy will no doubt backfire given that Russia is untrustworthy. I can see Russia using the closure of Black Sea access as an excuse to apply sanction on Turkey or black Russian tourists from traveling to Turkey in the future. Its clear that Bayraktar popularity and its impact on the battefield will be noted by Russia, so one can also expect a Russian response from this.
If the Turkish government intends on maintaining strong ties with Russia to prevent economic damage they are being rather ignortant. Do they really expect Russians and Ukrainians to travel/holiday in Turkey given the immense damage war has brought to each nation's economy. Don't be surprised to see Russia having 'technical diffculties' with delivering gas to Turkey until the Bosphorus and Dardanelles are re-opened.
People who talk about Turkish Russia relations always come from the position that Turkey does something and Russia will react to it. They couldn't be anymore wrong about this, but i dont blame them because the British media intentionally lies to her people concerning Turkey.
When Russia invaded Crimea and western sanctions were applied against Russia, Turkey didnt join the sanctions and she did everything not to get in the way of Russia.
Erdogans foreign policy generally stayed out of the way of Russias regional concerns.
This all changed when Russia actively joined the Syrian war on the side of the dictator and started indiscriminately bombing civilians and supporting the PKK/YPG there overtly. This lead to millions of refugees rushing to Turkey, it created instability within Turkey and outside her borders.
Russian support for the separatist ambitions of the extreme left wing communist terrorists was a great insult. Who could forget all the Russian flags being placed on YPG positions to threaten Turkey not to do anything.
Then came the Russian jet incident, the Russians who have a big history of trying to intimidate and threaten everyone were sending their jets into Turkish airspace as a message threatening Turkey not to do anything, as a result Turkey downed a jet. What came after was not only sanctions from Russia but the entire NATO alliance condemning Turkey for it, "kick Turkey out of NATO" slogans as well as NATO members removing their air defence systems from Turkey. I think only Spanish patriots remained.
This caused Erdogan to recalculate the situation, he realised that Turkey was alone in Syria and would have to do business with Russia to try and get things done. This is why the s400 got purchased, because erdogan seeing the americans also supporting her enemies in syria was trapped. He needed to find a way to secure Turkeys regional concerns and of the two in syria, america and russia, the russians were at least willing to do business.
However every deal with Russia always came with strings attached and it never played out in any honourable way, the russians would constantly backtrack and change the terms of agreement unilaterally.
However the catalyst that changed Turkish Russian relations was the brazen attack that killed Turkish troops in Syria. An unprovoked attack by Russia on Turkish positions whose co-ordinates were directly given to Russia to avoid such an incident took place. Erdogan and his media initially tried to hide the incident and when they couldn't hide it they blamed it on Assad, only for Russia to then show the attack on their media as another insult to Turkey.
This event changed everything.
This is where the world first witnessed Turkish drone warfare doctrine. For the first time Russian air defences systems internationally were made to look like absolute garbage.
Since the Russians killed Turkish troops the Turks in the space of 2 years have countered Russia in Syria, Libya, Azerbaijan and now Ukraine.
The first drone strike released by Ukraine on a Russian convoy was released on the two year anniversary when the Russians killed the Turkish troops, that wasn't by chance. That was an intentional message for Putin to fester over.
Turkish Russia relations are going to continue down this path, where both nations will do business but Turkey will work to counter Russia in every battlefield possible. This was caused by Russia not Turkey, by her defacto hostile position to Turkish national concerns.
