Ankara
Turkey's trade and energy relations with Russia will not change after Minsk ceasefire deal, believe experts.
The comments came after the Russian President Vladimir Putin's announcement on Thursday that a cease-fire agreement in Ukraine has been reached.
"The impaired relationship between Moscow and Brussels needs to be re-established again," said Nursin Guney, professor at the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Yildiz Technical University Istanbul.
Guney said "Russia does not have a solid energy infrastructure to pump natural gas to Eastern and Asian countries like it does to Europe."
Russian President Vladimir Putin and his counterpart Chinese President Xi Jinping signed several cooperation agreements including a memorandum of understanding on a western gas route following the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in Beijing on Nov. 2014
"Moscow needs European investments and technology to ramp up its natural gas production," she added.
Russia exports about 76 percent of its natural gas to Western European countries like Germany, Italy, France, and the United Kingdom. Smaller volumes of natural gas flows via the Gazprom pipeline network to Austria, Finland, and Greece, according to The U.S. Energy Information Administration, EIA.
Russia is the second-largest producer of natural gas and third-largest liquid fuels producer in the world and Russia's economy is highly dependent on its oil and gas production, according to the EIA.
Turkey's will still remain an important transit route for Russia, said Sencer Imer, professor at the Department of International Relations
Russia does not trust Ukraine and Bulgaria however Turkey is the most reliable market and trustworthy country for Russia," Imer added. “Russia deviced a very smart and strategic politics against EU, Imer added.
During the Ukraine-Russia conflict, it is estimated that at least 5,300 people have been killed since April as 12,200 have been injured and hundreds of thousands are displaced.
