Turkish business and military projects worth tens of billions of dollars may be frozen due to Turkey's downing of a Russian Su-24 on Tuesday, the Russian newspaper Kommersant reported, referring to high-ranking government sources. According to the sources, Moscow will slap "tough" measures against Ankara, in a move that will have a serious impact on Russian-Turkish relations in many fields. In particular, the Russian energy giant Gazprom will decide on further implementing the 11.4 billion euro TurkStream gas pipeline project. According to Reuters, Russia is currently Turkey's principal supplier of natural gas; Ankara buys 28-30 billion cubic meters (bcm) of the 50 bcm it consumes annually from Russia. In addition, the Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom may freeze the 22-billion-dollar deal to construct Turkey's first nuclear power plant, the Akkuyu. On Tuesday, the Russian Federal Tourism Agency Rosturism recommended that the country's tour operators suspend selling tickets to Turkey, citing an ever-increasing terrorist threat. Earlier that day, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov advised the country's citizens against visiting Turkey.According to Reuters, "Russia is the source of the second-largest number of [the country's] tourist arrivals after Germany." On November 24, the Russian Su-24 attack aircraft was fired upon in Syria, 2.5 miles away from the Turkish border, after it was hit with an air-to-air missile launched from a Turkish F-16 jet. Russian President Vladimir Putin reacted to the Turkish downing of the Russian warplane by describing it as a "stab in the back." He stressed that Russian pilots were in no way a threat to Turkey, something that Putin said was "an obvious fact." He added that the Su-24 incident in Syria had crossed the line in the conventional war against terrorism.
