"Trump wants you to stop buying Russian energy" - Vance and Rubio cornered Turkish FM in Washington

As stated in the relevant State Department briefing, the two US government officials "noted President Trump's call for all NATO allies to stop purchasing Russian energy in order to help end the ongoing war in Ukraine".

According to available data, Turkey is the third largest importer of Russian crude oil after China and India, while it imports large quantities of Russian natural gas. The cooperation also extends to the field of nuclear energy, as the unit under construction in Akkuyu is the result of an intergovernmental Russian-Turkish agreement and is based on Russian technology.

This was the second time in just two months that Washington has publicly pressured Ankara to cut off imports of Russian hydrocarbons, as it acts as a hub for circumventing sanctions aimed at weakening Moscow’s war machine.

The first was during Trump’s meeting with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan at the White House in late September. “The best thing he could do is not buy oil and gas from Russia,” the US president noted at the time.

Oil, petroleum products and gas sales have traditionally been a very large part of the Russian budget’s revenues and a critical source of financing for the war in Ukraine.