Russia steps up hostility against Turkey with war room briefing | Russia

Publish date: 2021-06-21
Russia This article is more than 8 years old

Russia steps up hostility against Turkey with war room briefing

This article is more than 8 years old

Foreign press and diplomats invited to hear Moscow denounce ‘Turkish elites’ for stealing 200,000 tonnes of oil a day and channelling funds to Isis

Although Turkey may have replaced the US as Russia’s rhetorical enemy No 1, the animations playing on the giant screens in Moscow’s new “war room” complex hadn’t yet been updated: they still featured the glowing red outline of North America under laser-like lines that seemed to suggest crosshairs.

But an unexpected defence ministry briefing on Wednesday – the first such event for foreign media in recent memory – left no doubt who was in Russia’s sights. Sitting beneath the main screen, which now showed satellite images of the Turkish-Syrian border, the deputy defence minister, Anatoly Antonov, accused Turkey of buying oil from Islamic State (Isis), and claimed the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, was personally involved in this “criminal business”.

“A unified team of bandits and Turkish elites operates in the region to steal oil from their neighbours [Iraq and Syria],” Antonov said. “This oil reaches Turkish territory in huge, industrial amounts through living oil pipelines of thousands of tanker trucks.” The trade provided terrorists with $2bn (£1.3bn) in revenues each year.

Later, Erdoğan responded by saying: “Nobody has the right to slander Turkey by saying Turkey is buying Daesh [Isis] oil.”

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Besides the oil-buying accusations, Wednesday’s briefing also showcased the national defence control centre, a new facility in the defence ministry compound across the Moskva river from Gorky Park that has been compared to a villain’s lair from a spy thriller.

Although it officially opened in December 2014 as part of a multibillion-rouble revamp of the military, the control centre made its major debut last month, when state television showed the president, Vladimir Putin, being informed about the progress of the Russian-Syrian military campaign against “terrorists” in Syria. The briefing room used was clearly meant to impress with three tiers of seating, at least 100 uniformed men seated behind computers and huge screens of maps and graphics.

A main command hub during wartime, the control centre also includes a room with concentric circles of chairs for more intimate – but still grandiose – meetings, as well as command stations and an auditorium for press conferences. Access is via a guarded gate where men in body armour check each vehicle, or a helicopter pad on the riverfront.

Turkey has been receiving negative coverage on state television since it shot down a Russian military jet that Ankara said had violated its airspace, a charge Russia has denied. Dozens of foreign military attaches also attended what some said was the first such briefing in months, although those of the US and Britain were not noticeable.

Asked whether the briefing was connected to the recent tensions with Turkey, a defence ministry spokesman, Igor Konashenkov, would only say it had been called because there was interest in the topic and had been planned several days in advance. But much of the satellite imagery dated from as far back as August, even though it had not previously been presented.

The main ‘war room’, which has been likened to a villain’s lair from a spy thriller. Photograph: Sputnik/Reuters

Antonov and other officials said at least 8,500 tankers transport up to 200,000 tonnes of oil a day from Isis-controlled areas in Syria and Iraq to Turkey, where it is sold for local use or transported on.

But the only indication of Erdoğan’s participation in the trade was Antonov’s claim that the Turkish president’s son was the head of a large energy company. He appeared to be referring to the president’s son-in-law, Berat Albayrak, who previously ran the energy firm Çalık Holding and was appointed energy minister in November.

Sergei Rudskoi, the deputy chief of staff, said Russian airstrikes had reduced Isis’s oil income from $3m to $1.5m a day, complaining that Moscow had not “observed strikes on columns of tanker trucks from the coalition” led by the US.

A German military attache who declined to provide his name said the findings of Isis oil flowing to Turkey were “not really new” but admitted he had not seen such evidence “in this form”.

“We have no chance to check it at this time, but we will check,” he said.

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