Russian President Vladimir Putin imposed sanctions against Turkey. His decree includes a ban on the import of certain Turkish goods, restriction of the activities of Turkish organizations in Russia, as well as a ban on charters between countries

Russian President Vladimir Putin (Photo: Mikhail Metzel/TASS)

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on measures to ensure national security and on the application of special economic measures against Turkey. The document was published on the Kremlin's official website.

The decree introduces a ban or restrictions on the activities of organizations that operate in Russia under the jurisdiction of Turkey. We are talking about a ban on them performing certain types of work and services, the list of which is to be determined by the government.

Putin also banned employers from hiring Turkish citizens, a restriction that comes into force on January 1, 2016. Judging by the text of the decree, it will not apply to Turkish citizens with whom labor relations will be formalized as of December 31, 2015.

The President also ordered to introduce a ban or limit the import of certain types of Turkish goods into Russia. Their list should also be determined by the government. What is clear so far is that this measure will not affect those goods that citizens will import from Turkey for personal use.

By the same decree, Putin instructed to ensure transport security of the waters of seaports in the Azov-Black Sea basin and strengthen control over the activities of Turkish carriers in Russia. The document emphasizes that tour operators should refrain from selling tours to Turkey (an actual ban on the sale of tours to Turkey was introduced on Tuesday, November 24).

The President also instructed the government to introduce a ban on charter air travel between the two countries.

Also, from January 1, 2016, the decree abolishes the visa-free regime for Turkish citizens who enter Russia (Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced this decision on Friday ).

Video: RBC

Presumably, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev will sign a government decree in the coming days. This document will list specific economic measures introduced in response to the downing of the Su-24.

A Su-24 bomber, which took part in a military operation in Syria, was shot down near the Turkish-Syrian border on November 24. Ankara claims that the plane invaded the country's airspace. Moscow denied this data, saying that the Su-24 was in the Syrian sky the entire time.

Russian President Vladimir Putin called the incident a “stab in the back.” He stated that what happened would seriously affect relations between Moscow and Ankara.

Hit your partner

A set of proposals affecting specific categories of Turkish goods is currently being discussed in the relevant ministries and departments; on Monday they will probably be reported to the Prime Minister, a source in the financial and economic bloc of the government told RBC. According to another government source, it is being discussed that the list of restrictions on Turkish goods will be broader than the existing list of food counter-sanctions against countries that introduced restrictions against Russia due to the annexation of Crimea. Officially, representatives of the ministries and departments responsible for developing the measures did not comment on this topic on Friday.

So far, Türkiye is Russia's fifth largest trading partner. The countries' trade turnover in 2014 amounted to $31 billion, in the nine months of 2015 - $18.1 billion. Of this, the import of Turkish goods accounted for just over $3 billion. The largest import item is products of plant origin.

In the overall structure of Russian food imports, Turkey accounted for 4% in 2014, the Ministry of Agriculture reported. Over the ten months of 2015, Turkey imported $1 billion worth of food to Russia. The largest categories are tomatoes and citrus fruits, which accounted for more than half of the supplies.

Other major Turkish imports are fabrics and textiles: many Russian clothing and footwear retailers place orders from factories in Turkey (in the first nine months of 2015, almost $514 million worth of fabrics and textile products and approximately $48 million worth of shoes were imported from Turkey to Russia).

Construction without Turkish workers

It is already clear that sanctions will hit Turkish construction companies operating in Russia. According to the Federal Migration Service, as of November 5, 2015, there were 87,680 Turkish citizens in Russia (46,000 of them were men aged 30 to 49 years). As of April, the Ministry of Labor issued 54,730 work quotas for Turks (more than 23% of all permits issued). With this indicator, Türkiye became the second supplier of workers to Russia after China.

The main employers of Turkish citizens in Russia are Turkish construction companies and their Russian subsidiaries: Yamata, Renaissance Construction, Gemont, Esta Construction. Each of them this year requested permission to work from 1 thousand to 6 thousand people - from ordinary masons to management employees.

The departments have proposals regarding restrictions in the construction sector, one of RBC’s government interlocutors said on Friday, without disclosing details. The head of the Ministry of Construction, Mikhail Men, told RBC on Thursday that he does not rule out the departure of Turkish companies from the Russian construction market: “There are quite a lot of Turkish companies operating in the real estate segment, primarily commercial, and we do not rule out that some of them will leave the sale of large projects in the country. Trust in them as partners has been undermined” (read more about what projects in Russia Turkish builders may lose here ).

Interrupted flight

The fact that charter carriers will face losses became clear on Tuesday, after the recommendation of Rostourism to stop selling tours to Turkey.
The ban came during the low season, but charter companies still estimate losses in the hundreds of thousands of dollars .

Charter flights from Russia to Turkey are carried out by eight airlines: Ural Airlines, NordWind Airlines, Yamal, Ikar (tour operator Pegas Touristik), I Fly (tour operator Tez Tour), Royal Flight ( uses Coral), Metrojet (Briscoe tour operator) and UTair.

Regular flights from Russia to Turkey, judging by the text of Putin’s decree, are not yet limited. On Wednesday, Deputy Head of the Ministry of Transport Valery Okulov told reporters that he considered it premature to talk about such a measure. Istanbul is a popular New Year's destination among Russian tourists. Turkish Airlines makes 454 round-trip flights per month between the cities of Russia and Turkey, RBC calculated (with an average round-trip ticket price of $250 and an average load of 150 passengers on a flight, Turkish Airlines' sales losses in the event of a ban on regular service could amount to about $12 million per month).