London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Oct 09, 2025

US sanctions Turkish companies for ‘helping Russian war effort’

US sanctions Turkish companies for ‘helping Russian war effort’

The recent US announcement to impose export controls on several Turkish companies for allegedly doing business with Russia has stirred debate on the effectiveness of these sanctions and whether Ankara, with elections looming, should respond in some manner to protect its rising trade relations with Moscow.
This is the first time Washington has sanctioned Turkish companies for allegedly helping Russia evade sanctions. Last year, the Turkish branch of a Russian company, called MMK, which owned two steel facilities, was sanctioned by the US.

The US Commerce Department said on Wednesday it has imposed new export controls on 28 companies based in China, Turkiye and other countries for supplying Russia’s military and defense industries with US-origin items, which it deemed violated America’s sanctions regime.

The sanctioned companies include Azu International, a Turkiye-based electronics firm that was established in March 2022, shortly after the Ukraine invasion, and which allegedly shipped to Russia foreign-origin electronics technology, including computer chips.

Also on the list is Dexias Turkiye, based in Turkiye and headed by Alim Khazishmelovich Firov, which allegedly procured US-origin electronic components as an intermediary for Radioavtomatika, a Russian defense procurement firm.

Since February 2022, there have been more than 400 entities added to the list that intends to restrict “Russia’s ability to sustain, repair and resupply its weaponry,” the US Commerce Department said in February.

“As the Kremlin seeks ways around the expansive multilateral sanctions and export controls imposed on Russia for its war against Ukraine, the United States and our allies and partners will continue to disrupt evasion schemes that support Putin on the battlefield,” said Undersecretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian E. Nelson.

“Today’s action underscores our dedication to implementing the G7 commitment to impose severe costs on third-country actors who support Russia’s war.”

This move also coincides with the latest statement by James O’Brien, head of the US State Department’s Office of Sanctions Coordination, cautioning that Turkiye has pledged to ban the re-export of sanctioned Western goods to help Russia’s war efforts.

Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, thinks this is just the beginning and tougher US measures against Turkiye firms may follow.

“In the upcoming period, US sanctions will target even harder several companies doing businesses with Russia,” he told Arab News.

“This is the policy of the Biden administration ahead of the elections in the US, that aims to deliver a foreign policy win and it requires these sanctions to really work,” he said.

“So far the US government followed the path of compliance going through companies. Maybe this latest move is doubling down these efforts,” Cagaptay added.

In line with this warning, Turkiye’s government recently provided Turkish companies in the ferrous and non-ferrous metals sector with a list of foreign goods that are prohibited from being sent to Russia. In addition, Ankara has also given verbal guarantees to the European Commission that sanctioned goods will not be transited to Russia from March 1, to comply with Western sanctions.

However, experts have cautioned about the negative impact on Turkiye, a NATO member, and its repercussions for the international community.

According to Cagaptay, the US government is also acting carefully and does not want to interfere with Turkiye’s economic stability and politics in these critical times.

“But this is the tip of iceberg. In the post-elections period, the US would require more stringent demands on Turkish companies to not trade with Russia, and that will definitely have an impact on Turkiye’s trade volume with Russia,” he said.

Russia is still one of Turkiye’s major partners, with trade rising last year when Turkiye was in desperate need of foreign exchange earnings because of the currency crisis.

Trade between Turkiye and Russia has increased since the Ukraine invasion despite Western sanctions, with hundreds of Russian companies having opened branches in Turkiye — a financial haven for Russians — to circumvent sanctions.

Trade volume between the two countries climbed to $68.2 billion last year, while in March, Turkiye’s exports to Russia increased by 285 percent to $1.1 billion.

Sinan Ulgen, director of the Istanbul think tank EDAM, thinks the recently announced US sanctions on these Turkish companies is an indication that the sanctions regime adopted by Washington can also have consequences for a NATO ally like Turkiye.

“But we have to essentially contextualize this measure. All Turkish exports to Russia will not be affected by this measure,” he told Arab News.

“The sanctioned entities have been found in violation of US sanctions for a range of critical technology products. This is indeed the area of concern of US policymakers given that these products are seen to be helping the Russian war effort,” he said.

But at the same time, Ulgen added, this measure demonstrates that there is indeed a concern about the re-export of some critical technology products.

“This is where pressure is likely to be also sustained also on Turkiye, but for this specific range of products,” he said.

According to Ulgen, so far there has been a modus vivendi between Turkish and US authorities on the implementation of sanctions.

“Turkiye has been quite cautious in not crossing some critical red lines set by the sanctions regime,” he said.

“For instance, in the past, when there were clear complaints about the Russian Mir payment system where the Turkish banking system accepted transactions based on Russian credit cards, Turkiye ultimately withdrew from this system,” he said.

“There is a good collaboration between Turkish and US authorities regarding the sanctions and this will continue,” Ulgen added.

“I think both sides would not want to find themselves in a more confrontational environment which would hurt both political relations and also Turkiye’s economic interests,” Ulgen said.
Comments

Oh ya 2 year ago
So everyone can help the NAZIS in Ukraine but nobody can help Russia who along with the western world help defeat the NAZIS in WWII. I dont know what your family did in WW2 but my grandfather was fighting NAZIS in Italy, now the west wants them to win. We all living in a pucked up world folks

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
×