On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin told Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan that Türkiye now represents the most reliable route for sending gas to the EU, proposing that Russia could set up a new supply hub, which would benefit Türkiye.

”In the course of the work of this hub, which we could create together, of course, it would also be a platform not only for supplies but also for determining the price, because this is a very important issue,” stated Putin among other things.

He also brought up a distribution center in Türkiye, saying that Russia could divert supplies from the damaged Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea to Türkiye.

Putin and Erdogan met in Kazakhstan where Erdogan also touched on Russia’s construction of the first Turkish nuclear power plant, which is set to commission next year.

This marked the fourth meeting in three months between the two leaders.

Erdogan defends keeping his ties to Russia intact despite the war in Ukraine. Türkiye is currently the NATO member nation with the closest links to Russia.

During the Thursday meeting, Erdogan highlighted how Türkiye has helped to arrange a grain agreement with Russia for shipments of Ukrainian grain via the Black Sea.

The US and the EU have applied pressure to get Türkiye to lend support to Western sanctions against Russia.

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