On 18 August, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in Lyiv, to express his support for Ukraine’s “territorial integrity and sovereignty.”

Erdogan added that they discussed viable options to resolve the current conflict between Kyiv and Moscow, as well as voicing concern about clashes around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine.

“We expressed our concern about the ongoing conflict around the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. We do not want to experience a new Chernobyl,” Recep Tayyip Erdogan said after the trilateral meeting.

Erdogan emphasized that this meeting would have positive effects, potentially enabling the export of Ukrainian grain via the Black Sea to other parts of the world.

On 22 July, a four-way agreement that allows for the safe passage of Ukrainian grain exports through the Black Sea was signed between Russian, Ukrainian, Turkish, and UN officials.

The deal would unfreeze the export of 20 million tons of grains from the harvest of the previous year, worth about $10 billion, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Aside from grain, the export of sunflower oil, fertilizer, and other agricultural and food-related products will also enter the world market.

The deal would ease a food crisis that is the result of a combination of unprecedented sanctions against Russia, and naval mines placed by Ukrainian armed forces in the Black Sea, which prevent commercial ships from safely entering Ukrainian ports.

Despite Ankara’s supposed neutrality in the conflict, the Turkish company Baykar is reportedly in the process of building a factory to produce attack drones on Ukrainian territory.

According to the Ukrainian Ambassador to Turkey Vasyl Bodnar, Baykar has already bought land, founded a company, and is rumored to be constructing a factory, despite Ankara’s ties with Moscow.