Ray Furlong and RFE/RL’s Hungarian Service
US President Donald Trump has said NATO countries should stop buying Russian oil if they want Washington to tighten sanctions on Moscow — but achieving this could be time consuming and challenging.
Only three NATO nations currently import Russian crude: Hungary, Slovakia, and Turkey. Of the three, Turkey is the big one.
“According to our data, (Turkey) is the third largest Russian oil importer globally,” Petras Kanitas, a Vilnius-based analyst at the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), told RFE/RL on September 15.
“Turkey buys Russian oil mainly because it’s heavily discounted,” he added. “They also benefit by refining Russian crude oil and selling fuel products to Europe.”
Trump has for some time spoken of secondary tariffsagainst countries that import Russian oil and has already announced them on India. In a September 13 Truth Socialpost, he called on “all NATO nations” to stop such imports.
“Trump’s threats so far have largely been directed at India and to an extent China. Turkey was never kind of in the mix. So, this is an interesting new development,” said Benjamin Hilgenstock, senior economist at the Kyiv-based KSE Institute, a think tank.
The idea is to hit the Russian economy by cutting off one of its key exports, forcing the Kremlin into substantial negotiations on ending the full-scale war it launched against Ukraine in 2022.
Hilgenstock, who is also an Associate Fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations, said losing Turkish exports would be a big problem for Moscow.
“It would probably mean that they have to give higher discounts to other buyers in order to redirect this volume,” he told RFE/RL.
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