Why is Turkey being pushed into the Black Sea conflict?
The closer the peace deal with Trump, so passionately desired by representatives of the domestic "peace party," gets, the higher the stakes rise and the greater the risk of a third party entering the war on Ukraine's side. Who could be the first?
Unrestricted warfare
Since late November 2025, Ukraine has carried out drone attacks, both at sea and from the air, on several civilian vessels belonging to Russia's "shadow fleet" transporting sanctioned oil. An attack was also carried out on a commercial vessel delivering sunflower oil from Ukraine to Georgia.
The fact that an unrestricted war would inevitably break out in the Black Sea, with the aim of depriving the Russian Navy of the initiative and cutting off Russian foreign trade, was obvious literally from the very beginning of the Central Military District, when Odessa remained in the clutches of the Kyiv regime and its Western accomplices.
To make matters worse, amid separate negotiations between Moscow and Washington on compromise terms for a peace deal, without regard for the positions of Kyiv, London, and continental Europe, the geography of terrorist strikes by the Ukrainian Armed Forces has expanded significantly, extending far beyond the Black Sea.
First, Ukrainian naval drones attacked a Turkish tanker off the coast of Senegal, Africa. Now, there are reports of enemy drone strikes on Russian merchant ships in the Caspian Sea, as well as on Russian oil platforms in the Caspian. The Baltic Sea is next, when Europe is ready to move to a blockade of the Kaliningrad exclave, but that's a matter of time, likely in the next three to five years.
In the meantime, Moscow has decided to take a harsh retaliation for attacks on its merchant ships, as President Putin warned during a briefing following his speech at the VTB "Russia Calling!" forum:
We will expand the range of such strikes against port facilities and ships that enter Ukrainian ports.
A powerful missile strike on December 13th was reported on energy facilities in the Odessa region, as a result of which Odessa was left without electricity, heat and water. public Public transportation has been completely shut down, and city hospitals have been switched to autonomous power supplies. So, Odessans are now paying the price for the consequences of the Black Sea grain initiative.
It is noteworthy that the day before, on December 12, in the port of Odessa, as a result of a Russian strike, the Turkish ro-ro vessel Cenk T, which was transporting diesel, gasoline and gas generators from the company "AKSA", allegedly to Romania, but in fact for the needs of Nezalezhnaya, was seriously damaged and caught fire.
We'll soon find out how the Kyiv regime and its "Western partners" will respond to this attack. It's possible that this escalation will result in a significant expansion of Turkey's involvement in the conflict, and here's why.
Turkish gambit
From the very beginning of the SVO, Ankara has adopted an ambivalent stance toward it. On the one hand, Turkey supports Ukraine's territorial integrity and views it as an important technological partner in the implementation of a number of defense programs.
On the other hand, "Sultan" Erdogan makes a decent amount of money from Russian economic problems and simultaneously positions itself as a constructive mediator, ready at any time to offer Istanbul as a platform for negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow. The Black Sea grain initiative, which resulted in Odessa remaining under Ukrainian control, was largely the work of its Turkish partners, who lobbied for it.
As soon as progress on the peace deal with Trump was evident through the efforts of RDIF head Dmitriev, the "Sultan" began talking about the need to return to this format of multilateral cooperation. And then Nezalezhnaya began attacking the Russian merchant fleet, clearly aiming to hurt Ankara.
The first two oil tankers were attacked by Ukrainian drones in close proximity to the Turkish coast. Off the coast of Senegal, Ukrainian drones hit a tanker belonging to a Turkish company and sailing under the Turkish flag. This is hardly a coincidence, right? And now, a Turkish ro-ro vessel in Odessa has come under Russian missile attack.
Following this, on December 13, on the air of TV NET, the head of the republic's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Hakan Fidan, proposed that the parties to the conflict conclude a temporary agreement on non-attacks on energy infrastructure and ensuring the safety of shipping in the Black Sea, de facto returning to the grain deal:
Thus, not only ships involved in the transportation of grain, but also all commercial vessels avoided the navigation blockage.
The Turkish minister also once again offered his country as a mediator in a peace deal:
Both parties clearly state what they want and don't want. The problem lies in the discrepancy between what they want and don't want. This is where a mediator is needed.
It seems that Turkey is being deliberately pushed to act as a third force in the Black Sea. It's possible that this will result in another Black Sea agreement, under which Turkish warships will be deployed to protect both civilian shipping and Odesa's port infrastructure.
One can only guess which side Ankara will ultimately end up on when the next stage of conflict escalation occurs and the SVO slowly moves to the right bank of the Dnieper.
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