Thread by @DionisCenusa

#Turkey_Russia: The race to reduce the price of Russian gas began: Erdogan has announced that Turkey wants a 25% discount on the price for pipeline gas. On top of that, he wants the payment to be made in troubled Turkish lira to save the country's dollar reserve.⤵️

Putin has yet to respond, but he is weakened and too reliant on Turkey to simply reject Erdogan's request. If Russia makes gas cheaper, then others from the Global South will flock with a similar request (Russian budget is already loosing revenues because of the ⤵️

self-initiated gas war against the EU).Abandoning Erdogan doesn't help either. That means a middle ground must be found to keep both parties happy. It may be that Russia limits the discount to 10-15% and ties it to some conditions, such as accepting payment via Mir payment ⤵️

etc. (despite US signs of secondary sanctions). I also see this as an opportunity for Putin to ask Erdogan for a geopolitical favor, like calling Aliyev and asking him to stop hostilities against Armenia. That's something I've been pondering for a while now.👇

https://twitter.com/DionisCenusa/status/1570776353934540802

I also covered here some of the intricacies of the Turkish-Russian relations👇

https://twitter.com/dioniscenusa/status/1560171301129666560