Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said he is “surprised” that Turkey is continuing to supply Ukraine with weapons while offering to act as a mediator in the conflict.
NATO member Turkey has been trying to strike a balancing act between the two countries since Russia’s full-scale aggression of Ukraine in February 2022.
Ankara supports Ukraine’s territorial integrity and has provided the country with armed drones and other military support, but it is also strengthening its energy ties with Russia and opposing Western sanctions against Moscow.
Turkey hosted peace talks between the two nations shortly after the aggression began in 2022, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly spoken of brokering further talks.
Ukraine has since remained determined not to engage directly with Russia in peace negotiations, and Russian President Vladimir Putin said last week that Kiev had already twice rejected ceasefire initiatives from Moscow.
In an interview with the Turkish newspaper Hürriyet, Lavrov said: “Turkish weapons are used by the armed forces of Ukraine to kill Russian military personnel and civilians.”
And according to him, “this situation cannot but cause surprise, given the declarations of the Turkish government that it is ready to mediate”.
The media points out that the Turkish defense and aviation industry achieved record exports in 2023, which reached 5.5 billion dollars, 27.1% more than a year ago, according to a report by the Turkish Exporters Assembly (TIM).
About 5.3% of those exports went to Ukraine, which was a similar share of exports to Azerbaijan (5.1%) and Poland (4.9%), but significantly less than the percentage that went to the US (16.7%), the report said. /Telegraph/
