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Erdogan wants to return the S-400 systems he bought from Putin

Washington is demanding that Ankara abandon Russian military equipment, Bloomberg reports.

In exchange for the Russian air defence systems, Turkey is being offered a major “carrot” — the lifting of sanctions on its defence industry and the restoration of access to U.S. F-35 fighter jets.

The S-400 systems were delivered to Turkey in 2019 but have been sitting idle in storage due to U.S. pressure and Ankara’s removal from the F-35 program. According to sources, Erdogan already raised the issue of returning the S-400s during a meeting with Putin on December 13.

Natural gas prices in Europe have all but returned to normal since Russia's full scale war in Ukraine. In fact, the only reason for the spike in 2021 and 2022 has been Russia's energy war against Europe, which started even before the full scale invasion of Ukraine. The numbers clearly say that.

It proves many things:

Russian energy was never cheap, neither politically nor economically.
Russian energy was always unreliable.
Russia always needed Europe more than the other way around.