Russia–Turkey relations (; ) are the bilateral relations between Russia and Turkey and their antecedent states. Relations between the two are rather cyclical. From the late 16th until the early 20th centuries, relations between the Ottoman and Russian empires were normally adverse and hostile and the two powers were engaged in numerous Russo-Turkish wars, including one of the longest wars in modern history. Russia attempted to extend its influence in the Balkans and gain control of the Bosphorus at the expense of the weakening Ottoman Empire. As a result, the diplomatic history between the two powers was extremely bitter and acrimonious up to World War I. However, in the early 1920s, as a result of the Bolshevik Russian government's assistance to Turkish revolutionaries during the Turkish War of Independence, the governments' relations warmed. Relations again turned sour at the end of WWII as the Soviet government laid territorial claims and demanded other concessions from Turkey. Turkey joined NATO in 1952 and placed itself within the Western alliance against the Warsaw Pact during the Cold War, when relations between the two countries were at their lowest level. Relations began to improve the following year, when the Soviet Union renounced its territorial claims after the death of Stalin.
Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, relations between Turkey and Russia improved significantly and the two countries came to rank among each other's largest trade partners. Russia became Turkey's largest provider of energy, while many Turkish companies began to operate in Russia. In the 1990s, Turkey became the top foreign destination for Russian tourists.
However, both countries still stand on opposite ends when it comes to foreign policy, especially in tense issues such as the Syrian Civil War, the Kosovo conflict and have opposing views on the Armenian genocide. Relations were tense following the Russian fighter jet shootdown in November 2015, becoming normalised again in 2016. As a close partner of both Russia and Ukraine, Turkey is actively attempting to broker a peaceful solution to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, and has hosted a number of high-profile negotiations between the two countries.
Early history
Slavic and Turkic peoples have been in contact for centuries along the Eurasian Steppe. Medieval Turkic kingdoms like Khazaria, Cumania, Volga Bulgaria, the Kipchak Khanate, the Khanate of Kazan, the Crimean Khanate, the Astrakhan Khanate and the Khanate of Sibir were established in parts of present-day Russia, with a continuing demographic, genetic, linguistic and cultural legacy.
The Turks in Anatolia were separated from Russia by the Black Sea and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth to the northwest and the Caucasus mountains to the east. The Turks founded the Ottoman Empire in Anatolia and began expanding outwards, while Russia was doing the same. The two empires began a series of clashes over the Black Sea basin.
The conquest of Constantinople in 1453 by the Ottomans marked the end of the Christian Byzantine Empire, and Russia became the seat of the Eastern Orthodox Church and its rulers inherited the Byzantine legacy.
Clashes of empires
Starting in 1549, the Ottoman Empire's support for smaller Turkic and Islamic vassal states in modern Russia (the Astrakhan Khanate, the Crimean Khanate, etc.) brought the two empires into conflict. The Black Sea was under Ottoman control when the Russians began their offensive against the Turks. In 1696 Peter the Great took Azov, but many more battles lay ahead. The Russo-Turkish War (1768-74) resulted in the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca in 1774. This treaty granted Russia passage to the Black Sea, making it possible for Russia to gain access to the Mediterranean Sea. It also allowed the Russians the privilege to intervene in the Ottoman Empire on the behalf of the Eastern Orthodox Christian populations. By the 19th century, Russia was helping Turkey's Slavic and Christian minorities to revolt against Ottoman rule. Russia did not always have in mind the goal of partitioning the Ottoman state, fearing this would aid the expansion plans of the Austrian Empire in the Balkan peninsula, which was largely Orthodox. Eventually, however, the desire for free passage through the Turkish Straits and Pan-Slavist feeling at home pushed Russia in that direction, leading to the decisive intervention in 1877–78.