Vladimir Putin will soon visit Turkey, according to the Russian president’s aide Yuri Ushakov, as cited by Interfax on June 16.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Putin have agreed on the visit and planning for it was under way, Ushakov was further reported as saying, without giving a timeline. 

If the visit takes place, it could rile Turkey’s fellow Nato partners. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued an arrest warrant for Putin “for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population (children) and that of unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation (under articles 8(2)(a)(vii) and 8(2)(b)(viii) of the Rome Statute)”. Turkey is not a member of the ICC, thus has no legal compulsion to act on the arrest warrant, but if Ankara facilitates a rare visit outside the borders of Russia for Putin, and on Nato ground, it could rub up other members of the defence alliance the wrong way.

Turkey takes a neutral approach to the Ukraine war, attempting to maintain amicable ties with both Moscow and Kyiv. Western capitals tolerate the stance, partly on the basis that it makes Turkey a potentially useful mediator between the foes that could play an important role in any peace talks of the future. However, Turkey is also seen as having enabled a substantial amount of sanctions avoidance when it comes to Russian trade and oligarchs’ assets. The tolerance shown towards Turkey’s neutrality could snap if Erdogan is seen as pursuing a foreign policy that is very much in the interests of his country and Russia, but too much of a hindrance to the West.

Putin was clearly backing fellow strongman Erdogan during Turkey's May elections. Prior to Erdogan's successful bid for re-election, Putin helped protect the extremely fragile Turkey economy with measures such as postponing the need for Ankara to pay its multi-billion-dollar Russian gas imports bill.

Separately, Turkey’s newly appointed Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan has named his ministry’s spokesperson Tanju Bilgic as Ankara’s new ambassador to Moscow, Turkey’s state-run news provider Anadolu Agency reported on June 16.

Bilgic, who has previously served as Turkey's ambassador to Belgrade, will replace Mehmet Samsar, who has held the Moscow post since 2019. 

Fidan and Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov held their first phone call on June 9. They discussed as priorities combatting terrorism in the Middle East, disagreements over the extension of the Black Sea Grain Initiative and Ankara’s normalisation talks between Damascus and Yerevan, according to the Russian foreign ministry.

Fidan was Turkey's intelligence chief before becoming foreign minister following Erdogan’s late May re-election.