Erdoğan ignores Putin

Official Türkiye does not react to the accusations of the Kremlin

The spokesman of the Russian dictator accused Kyiv and Ankara of violating last year's agreements. 5 Azov commanders were supposed to stay in Türkiye until the end of the war, but on July 7, President Zelenskyi took the Ukrainian heroes from Türkiye with his plane.

The Russian spokesman was quoted by dozens of Turkish media.

However, the situation in the Turkish media is as follows: if the news is not available on the state broadcaster TRT, as well as in two private media holdings that cover the entire country - Hürriyet and Sabah - then it is not available for the general public. Everything else is news for “gourmets” and specialists. 

It is worth looking at who is spreading "treason" in the Turkish media due to the release of Azov residents. First of all, the Sputnik website and radio are localized for the Turkish audience. Before the full-scale invasion began, the Turkish-language Russian Sputnik was a source of information for dozens of Turkish media outlets. 5-6 million readers visited the site daily, and it was among the top ten most popular news resources. The large-scale aggression that began on February 24, 2022, and the propaganda of the war destroyed the reputation of the Russian media in Türkiye, but Rossotrudnichestvo still retains influence over a number of local journalists and political scientists who chase Moscow's senses.

First of all, these are left-wing publications like Evrensel. They have a long history of relations with Moscow. The second group is radical oppositionists and anti-Americanists. Their powerful mouthpiece is the Cumhuriyet publication, which often sins with commissioned articles and interviews in favor of Russia.

However, both the opposition and the authorities do not dare to analyze this move by Erdoğan from the point of view of the large-scale negotiations that are ongoing between Moscow and Ankara.

The grain corridor, created last year in July, became a personal achievement of President Erdoğan, but Putin undermined its work at least 6 times, and Russian representatives in the joint Coordination Center in Istanbul constantly slowed the passage of ships with Ukrainian grain through the straits.

Erdoğan is tired of Putin's blackmail, so handing over the commanders to Azov in Kyiv is an eloquent gesture to Moscow on the eve of Putin's visit to Türkiye, scheduled for August.