- August 9, 2026
- 9:43 pm
- World News
Turkey has not closed the Bosphorus to commercial shipping. However, Ankara acknowledged pressure from some allied states due to the use of the straits, introduced additional security measures, and proposed a moratorium on strikes in the Black Sea to Ukraine and Russia.
Editorial Check: The material was prepared by R.Verter — author and analyst at NANovosti, born in Ukraine and living in Israel, who regularly works with the Ukrainian-Israeli and international agenda. For this publication, NANovosti compared the statement of the ruling AK Parti from August 5, the message of the Turkish Foreign Ministry on the 90th anniversary of the Montreux Convention, the speech of Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on August 8, data from the Turkish maritime agency, and Reuters reports on shipping and attacks in the Black Sea. Where Ankara did not disclose details or the perpetrator of the attack was not identified, this is indicated separately.
As of August 9, 2026, the Bosphorus and Dardanelles remain open to commercial shipping. Two Turkish government officials told Reuters that ships continue to pass through the Turkish straits into the Black Sea. Turkey has indeed introduced temporary security measures, but the content of these measures has not yet been disclosed.
It is important to record this immediately because a louder version has already emerged around Turkish decisions — as if Erdogan ‘closed the Bosphorus.’
He did not do this.
The real story is more interesting: the ruling party of Turkey acknowledged that allied states tried to change the use of the straits to intervene in the war or support one of the sides. Ankara refused. And now, when the naval war has reached Turkish ships and sailors, the Montreux issue is turning for Turkey not only into geopolitics but also into its own security.
It was not Erdogan who spoke about the pressure — but this is the official line of his party.
On August 5, the official representative of the ruling AK Parti, Omer Celik, answered a question about attacks on Turkish merchant ships in the Black Sea.
It was Celik, not Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who reported that some allied states were in intensive contact with Turkey regarding the use of the straits. According to him, it was about the desire to become a party to the war, intervene in it, or support a certain country.
Ankara, Celik stated, despite this, continued to apply the Montreux Convention ‘without concessions’ and was ready to worsen relations with some allies for this.
Here, one cannot take the next convenient but unproven step.
Celik did not name these states. Therefore, NANovosti has no grounds to write that it was specifically about the USA, the UK, or France. There are also no grounds to turn his words into the formula ‘NATO demanded to open the Bosphorus’: Celik spoke about some allied states, not about an official decision of the North Atlantic Alliance.
But the very fact of such contacts is now confirmed by a representative of the ruling party of Turkey.
This is already significant new information.
Especially since the statement did not appear in a political vacuum. On July 20, on the 90th anniversary of the Montreux Convention, the Turkish Foreign Ministry officially called the agreement one of the main guarantees of peace, security, and stability in the Black Sea and stated that the country would continue to apply it with the same determination.
R.Verter, back in December 2025, analyzed on NANovosti Hakan Fidan’s proposal for a special agreement between Ukraine and Russia on the security of shipping in the Black Sea. The current statements show the continuation of the same Turkish line: Ankara is trying not to choose a winner in the naval war but to retain the right to set limits on its expansion.
22 sailors on Nadezhda: when geopolitics ended up on the deck of a merchant ship
This policy has acquired a very specific human context.
On August 3, Ro-Ro Nadezhda was sailing from Novorossiysk to Turkish Samsun. Approximately 20 nautical miles from the Russian port, the ship was attacked by a drone.
On board were 22 sailors, 13 of whom were Turkish citizens. According to initial data from the Turkish maritime agency, three crew members might have been in serious condition. The residential part and the bow of the ship were damaged, and a fire started. The Turkish agency separately reported that the rescue operation was complicated for some time by the persistent danger of new drone strikes. The sailors were eventually evacuated to Novorossiysk. Later, the damaged ship was delivered to Samsun.
And here is where the line between the military map and the life of an ordinary crew passes.
For a sailor, it does not matter much what political formula the side that launched the drone uses. He is on a commercial ship, sees the fire and the damaged deck, and waits to see if a rescuer can even approach him.
The General Secretary of the International Transport Workers’ Federation, Stephen Cotton, commenting on the general escalation around civilian shipping, separately warned: the death of civilian sailors cannot be turned into an acceptable side effect of military operations.
At the same time, NANovosti consciously does not attribute the attack on Nadezhda to Ukraine. Reuters and Turkish authorities have not publicly established who carried out this specific strike. The very location of the ship near Novorossiysk is insufficient for such a conclusion.
This is one of the important boundaries of the credibility of the whole story.
What exactly Fidan conveyed to Erdogan
On August 8, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan went beyond Celik’s party statement.
He said that the war had spread to almost the entire Black Sea. In his assessment, initially, military harbors and ships were the targets of attacks, but now commercial shipping, including Turkish ships, ships of Turkish owners, and ships where Turkish sailors work, is increasingly suffering.
Fidan reported another important detail: Turkish authorities prepared several measures, presented them to President Erdogan, and began to implement them.
What exactly these measures are, he did not disclose.
Therefore, two phrases are currently correct simultaneously.
Turkey has indeed tightened security measures.
But Turkey has not announced the closure of commercial passage through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles.
On August 9, government representatives confirmed to Reuters that shipping continues under Montreux.
Fidan also reported that Ankara proposed to both sides to create a mechanism for a moratorium on strikes in the Black Sea.
Here is an important detail that easily disappears in the political retelling: the minister separately said that the Ukrainian side already had a proposal on this issue, which Turkey conveyed to Russian representatives.
That is, the current initiative does not look like just a Turkish demand for Kyiv to stop Ukrainian attacks on Russian logistics.
It is about trying to establish mutual restrictions.
The Black Sea has already changed — and July showed the scale
Ankara’s concern did not arise from one ship.
In July, Ukraine registered 35 attacks on ships in ports, another 22 attacks on ships at sea, and 67 strikes on port infrastructure. For comparison: in the entire year 2025, 14 attacks on ships were registered. These figures are cited by Reuters with reference to the Ukrainian infrastructure agency.
Russia has intensified strikes on Odessa and Ukrainian port infrastructure, through which the main part of Ukrainian agricultural exports passes. At the same time, Ukraine expanded its campaign against Russian oil, port, and maritime logistics. Reuters separately notes that both sides claim to strike targets related to the war, but the expansion of the geography of attacks increases risks for the commercial fleet.
NANovosti has already tracked this phase of the war. In July, we showed in detail how Ukrainian maritime drones forced Russia to restrict movement in the Sea of Azov and change maritime logistics.
Then the main question was: how deeply can drones disrupt Russian military and economic supply?
Now the next question has arisen: where is the boundary of the operation against the Russian military economy, after which the entire Black Sea begins to become more dangerous for ships of third states?
For Ukraine, this is an inconvenient but necessary question.
Ukraine has an obvious right to destroy Russia’s ability to continue aggression, including logistics related to the war. But maintaining international support for Kyiv requires simultaneously the clearest distinction between a military target, a sanctioned ‘shadow fleet,’ and ordinary civilian shipping.
For Russia, the question is even more direct. It is Russian full-scale aggression that has turned the Black Sea into a war zone, and Russian strikes systematically hit Ukrainian ports and commercial infrastructure.
Montreux simultaneously ties the hands of Russia and Ukraine’s allies
This is where the main paradox of Turkish policy lies.
The Montreux Convention was signed on July 20, 1936. It establishes Turkey’s special role in the Bosphorus and Dardanelles, ensures a regime of commercial shipping, and sets separate strict rules for military ships.
After the start of full-scale Russian aggression against Ukraine, Turkey applied the military provisions of the Convention.
As a result, Russia did not receive the free opportunity to transfer additional warships from the Mediterranean Sea to reinforce the Black Sea Fleet through the Bosphorus.
But this same system does not allow Ukraine’s allies to simply pass military ships transferred to Kyiv through the straits.
The most illustrative example appeared in January 2024. Turkey refused to allow two British minesweepers transferred to Ukraine to pass. Reuters then reported that Ankara explained the decision by applying Montreux.
The problem has not disappeared. In the spring of 2026, NANovosti analyzed why the anti-mine ships transferred to Ukraine still cannot enter the Black Sea and have already become in demand in the discussion of the security of the Strait of Hormuz.
Therefore, the formula ‘Montreux benefits Russia’ is too simplistic.
The formula ‘Montreux works in Ukraine’s interests’ is also.
It works primarily in Turkey’s interests.
Ankara does not want Russia to be able to increase the Black Sea Fleet at its discretion. But it also does not want the appearance of an unlimited naval grouping of non-Black Sea NATO states in the Black Sea.
And now we have confirmation from an AK Parti representative that attempts to persuade Turkey were indeed made.
Not to close the sea, but to prevent the war from becoming Russia — NATO
From this follows NANovosti’s own conclusion — News of Israel.
The sequence of Ankara’s actions since 2022 shows that Turkey considers Montreux not just as an old international treaty that has to be formally observed.
For it, this is a tool of power.
Control over the straits allows Erdogan to simultaneously talk with Kyiv, Moscow, and NATO allies and answer each of them: entry into the Black Sea will not be determined solely by your military needs.
This is not neutrality in the classical sense.
Turkey armed and supported Ukraine while maintaining economic relations with Russia and not joining the Western sanctions system. But on the issue of the straits, Ankara seeks to maintain a separate policy.
And here Celik’s recognition is especially interesting.
If allies indeed tried to achieve a different use of the straits, and Turkey refused even at the cost of complicating relations, Montreux becomes one of the most rigid red lines of Erdogan’s foreign policy.
Israel is much closer here than it seems
For Israel, this is not a distant dispute about ships somewhere between Odessa and Novorossiysk.
Israel is connected to the Black Sea by trade.
NANovosti previously reported how Israeli ZIM restored direct container service between Israel and Ukraine. The security of Ukrainian ports and the western part of the Black Sea directly determines how viable such routes are.
There is also a food connection.
Russia and Ukraine remain the most important participants in the global grain and vegetable oil market. NANovosti has already analyzed why disruption of shipments through the Black Sea has again become one of the risk factors for global food prices.
This does not mean that after each strike, bread in Haifa or Tel Aviv will automatically become more expensive the next morning.
The mechanism is different: the risk of the voyage increases, the insurance premium, the cost of freight, the number of ships willing to work on the route decreases, and some cargoes take longer routes.
At the beginning of August, the average cost of using an oil tanker in the Black Sea, according to market estimates by Reuters, rose from just over 200 thousand to more than 300 thousand dollars per day. War insurance for some calls to Black Sea ports increased from about 1% to 2% of the ship’s value.
There is also a more direct Israeli connection. In April, NANovosti investigated the story of how a ship with grain, the origin of which was linked to Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories, arrived at the port of Haifa.
That is, the routes of the Black Sea already end not on the geographical map.
They end, among other places, in Israeli ports.
Six questions Ankara has not yet answered
The main value of Celik’s statement is simultaneously its main drawback: he confirmed the pressure but did not disclose details.
We do not yet know which allied states specifically approached Turkey.
We do not know which ships or operations were discussed.
We do not know whether Celik’s words mainly relate to the years 2022–2024 or whether such pressure continued in 2026.
The content of the measures presented by Fidan to Erdogan has not been disclosed.
It is unknown whether Moscow will agree to the mutual moratorium mechanism that Ankara talks about.
Finally, it is currently impossible to say whether temporary Turkish security measures will turn into a system of stricter checks on individual commercial routes.
That is why the loudest headline — ‘Erdogan closed the Bosphorus’ — simultaneously turns out to be the weakest explanation of what is happening.
He did not close the Bosphorus.
Something else is happening.
After four and a half years of Russian aggression, the naval war has expanded so much that Turkey is forced to protect two things at once: the safety of its own civilian fleet and Ankara’s exclusive right to determine how close military confrontation can approach the Turkish straits.
Why Erdogan’s position is becoming even more important now
If attacks on merchant ships continue, Turkey will face an unpleasant choice.
It can try to maintain almost the same regime of commercial passage and accept increasing risk for sailors, shipowners, and insurance companies.
It can introduce new security procedures that formally do not close the straits but make individual voyages more difficult and expensive.
And it can increase diplomatic pressure on Ukraine and Russia for a separate maritime agreement.
Judging by Fidan’s statements, Ankara is currently choosing the third path, complementing it with security measures unknown to us.
But there is a principle that almost no longer requires guesswork.
Turkey is not going to give up control over the Black Sea balance to Moscow, Kyiv, or its own allies.
This is the main meaning of the Montreux story.
For Russia, Turkish policy closes the simple path of strengthening the Black Sea Fleet. For Ukraine, it simultaneously limits the possibility of receiving naval reinforcements from Western allies. For NATO, it leaves the Black Sea as a zone where the Alliance member Turkey acts primarily as an independent Black Sea power.
And for Israel, what is happening is also useful as an example of how a state turns geography, international law, and control over a strategic route into an independent tool of national policy.
NANews — Israel News sees in the statements of recent days neither Erdogan’s turn to Russia nor a refusal to support Ukraine.
Ankara is doing what it has consistently done throughout the years of war: not allowing anyone else to decide for Turkey who and under what conditions passes through its gates to the Black Sea.