Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced on Friday that Russia would be suspending its visa-free travel agreement with Turkey, in light of
Turkey's decision to shoot down a Russian warplane earlier this week.
The suspension, which will make it harder for Russians to travel to Turkey, is likely to have a significant negative impact on Turkey's economy.
Russians account for a huge portion of Turkey's tourism industry. About 3.3 million Russian tourists visited Turkey in 2014, the second-largest number of tourist arrivals after Germany and around 12% of total visitors, according to Reuters.
The move comes two days after Russia issued an official travel warning advising its citizens against visiting Turkey. Russian travel agencies have also announced that they will withdraw their business in Turkey until next year, according to a translation by Boris Zilberman, a Russia expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.
The move marks perhaps the culmination of Moscow's attempts to retaliate against Ankara.
"Absent a clear Turkish apology, Putin had to show toughness and 'react,'" geopolitical expert Ian Bremmer, president of Eurasia Group, told BI on Friday.
"But this reaction is carefully measured and not meant to create a tit for tat that becomes dangerous. Russians aren't going to touch gas exports to Turkey. And I don't see military escalation on either side."
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