BSS :
Shortly after Russian forces invaded Ukraine in the early hours of Thursday, the Ukrainian embassy in Ankara was quick to appeal to Turkey.
“The Russian Federation has started a war against Ukraine. Peaceful Ukrainian cities are being bombed. We call on our strategic partner Turkey and the friendly Turkish people to support us in this difficult time,” the embassy tweeted.
Turkey Vasyl Bodnar also asked Ankara to prevent Russian ships from passing through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles Straits. The Bosphorus Strait joins the Black Sea and the Marmara Sea and the Dardanelles Strait links the Marmara Sea to the Aegean Sea.
Later on Thursday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke to his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a “heavy blow to regional peace and stability”.
“We reject Russia’s military operation,” he said in a televised speech after convening an emergency security meeting.
On Tuesday also, Turkey’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs had been quick to denounce Russia’s move to recognise the independence of two breakaway territories in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas.
