The US is putting pressure on Russian-Turkish trade but, at the same time, spending billions on Russian oil products.

The US threat to impose sanctions on financial companies doing business with Russia has chilled Turkish-Russian trade, disrupting or slowing some payments for imported oil and Turkish exports.

“It has become challenging to make some payments for energy carriers to the Russian Federation, especially after the new sanctions at the end of December”.

Problems with payments are related to Turkish banks reviewing their business and increasing requirements for Russian customers.

The Russian Federation became the largest exporter of crude oil and diesel fuel to energy-poor Turkey, supplying 8.9 million tons of crude oil and 9.4 million tons of diesel fuel by November.

At the same time, the US became the largest buyer of petroleum products from India, which were produced from Russian oil, after the introduction of the price ceiling. From December 2022 to the end of 2023, the US purchased oil products worth $1.3B. Last year, Russia received a record $37B from selling crude oil to India.