The Republic of Turkey, like most Muslim countries, officially maintains a neutral position on the russian-Ukrainian war. However, unlike Iran, Syria and other individual countries of the Islamic world, Turkey’s neutrality is positively labelled for Ukraine. This is evidenced by Ankara’s closing of the straits for russian naval passage to the Black Sea, initiatives of Turkey to organise the Ukrainian-russian negotiation process, encouraging NATO and the UN to support Ukraine more resolutely and recognising russians actions as unprovoked aggression. At the same time, the crisis state of the current Turkish economy and energy dependence on russia do not allow Turkey to fully support anti-russian sanctions and refuse to cooperate with moscow in the military sphere.   

Turkey has been very clear that it supports territorial integrity of Ukraine The country does not recognise russia’s annexation of the peninsula, is a member of the Crimean Platform and has supported most UN resolutions on Ukraine, and Ankara has provided strong and consistent assistance to Ukraine.

The governments of Ukraine and Turkey have signed an agreement providing for cooperation in the high-tech, aviation and space sectors. As part of the agreement, the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine and Turkish defence company Baykar signed an agreement to build a drone repair service centre in Ukraine. The main tasks of the future centre will be to maintain, repair and upgrade the equipment. It will be used to train personnel in the operation of Baykar drones. The Turkish company is interested in deeper cooperation with Ukraine. Therefore, it plans to build a number of such centres in the future. Potentially, in peacetime, they could provide maintenance services for other countries operating Baykar systems in Europe.

As part of this partnership, a Baykar plant is being built in the Kyiv region, which will be able to produce about 120 drones annually. The plant will take about 12 months to complete. Next, the company plans to start installing the necessary equipment and creating an organisational structure. Baykar will invest $100 million in these projects.

Despite the war, Ukrainian companies continue to supply aircraft engines for Turkish aircraft. Ukrainian engines are integrated into the Turkish unmanned aerial vehicles Bayraktar Kizilelma and Bayraktar Akinci and are used in the ATAK-2 attack helicopters and T925 multipurpose helicopters. They are also offered for  promising 5th generation TF-X fighter aircraft of Turkey.

On 1 July 2024, Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania launched joint mine countermeasures operations in the Black Sea to improve the safety of navigation, in particular for Ukrainian grain exports. The initiative is the first major joint action by the Black Sea countries since the full-scale invasion of russia and Ukraine in February 2022. It is aimed at clearing russian mines that have been drifting in some areas of the Black Sea as a result of military aggression.

Ukraine and Turkey will cooperate in the field of military rehabilitation. The main objective of the cooperation is to create an effective rehabilitation space with the participation of civilian and military healthcare facilities, social services and local governments.

The Republic of Turkey is ready to help Ukraine restore its energy sector after the Russian attacks and help to build up distributed generation capacity, including the supply of necessary equipment and the involvement of technical and expert assistance from Turkish specialists.

Turkey ratified the free trade agreement with Ukraine, and President Recep Erdogan approved the document with its annexes. It is worth noting that the agreement was signed on 3 February 2022, but President Erdogan approved the agreement on 1 August 2024. In 2023, bilateral trade between Turkey and Ukraine totalled $7.3 billion. The free trade area is expected to increase volumes to $10 billion in a short period of time. The countries will continue to strengthen cooperation and increase mutual trade and investment based on common interests.

Turkey is one of the main foreign trade partners of the region, ranking the 3rd among exporters and the 2nd among importers in the world. According to the results of 2023, the volume of goods exports from Dnipropetrovsk region amounted to $368.3 million and increased by 7.8% compared to 2022. Turkish companies buy fats and vegetable oils, ferrous metals and products made of them, grain crops, etc.

112 enterprises in Dnipropetrovsk region exported their products to the Turkish market, including metallurgical, food, machine-building and processing companies.

Imports of goods from Turkey to Dnipropetrovsk region increased by 81.4% compared to 2022 and totalled $496.8 million.

605 importing companies of the region bought ferrous metals and products made of them, oil and oil products, electrical machinery, inorganic chemicals, etc.

Imports were mainly carried out by metallurgical, food and processing industry enterprises and trading companies.   

Source: information for the article was taken from open online sources