The war in Ukraine and Turkey’s fence-sitting between the West and Russia

Turkey designated the Russian invasion as a “war” over the weekend, giving it the right under the 1936 Montreux Convention to close the Bosporus Strait, a move that’s been seen as supportive of Ukraine.

Aside from this move, however, Turkey has been reluctant to join its NATO allies in taking punitive measures against Moscow such as imposing sanctions or shutting its airspace to Russian aircraft, and Turkey’s President Erdogan has reiterated that he can neither abandon Russia nor Ukraine.

At the same time, Ankara has joined Moscow’s crackdown on Western media outlets.

Expert Aykan Erdemir joins our host Thanos Davelis to explore the delicate balancing act that Turkey’s Erdogan is playing between Moscow, Ukraine, and the West and answer the question of where Turkey stands in the Russia-Ukraine war. 

Erdemir is the senior director of the Turkey program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former Turkish lawmaker.