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.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan with Russian President Vladimir Putin meeting in 2020.
The Republic Monument (1928) at Taksim Square in Istanbul, crafted by Pietro Canonica. The people standing behind Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founder of the Turkish Republic, include Semyon Ivanovich Aralov, Ambassador of the Russian SFSR in Ankara during the Turkish War of Independence (1919–1922). His presence in the monument, ordered by Atatürk, points out to the financial and military aid sent by Vladimir Lenin in 1920, during the war.
Ottoman postcard of the Russian Embassy's summer residence in the Büyükdere neighbourhood of Istanbul, on the Bosphorus. The main building of the Russian Embassy (since 1923 the Russian Consulate) is on İstiklal Avenue, in the Beyoğlu (Pera) district.
Soviet stamp of Turkish poet Nâzım Hikmet Ran, who died in Moscow and was buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery
2015 Russian Sukhoi Su-24 shootdown
On 24 November 2015, a Turkish Air Force F-16 fighter jet shot down a Russian Sukhoi Su-24M attack aircraft near the Syria–Turkey border. According to Turkey, the aircraft was fired upon while in Turkish airspace because it violated the border up to a depth of 2.19 kilometres for about 17 seconds after being warned to change its heading ten times over a period of five minutes before entering the airspace. The Russia Defence Ministry denied that the aircraft ever left Syrian airspace, claiming that their satellite data showed that the Sukhoi was about 1,000 metres (1,100 yd) inside Syrian airspace when it was shot down.
The Su-24M aircraft that was shot down, two weeks before the event.
Turkish President Erdoğan (left) and Russian President Putin at the G-20 summit in Antalya on 15 November 2015
Repatriation of Oleg Peshkov's body at Chkalovsky Airport, 30 November 2015.
Russian Defence Minister Sergey Shoygu presents President Putin with the flight data recorder of the Su-24