Notwithstanding Russian President Vladimir Putin’s declaration that Turkey was “stabbing us in the back” by downing a Russian Su-24 jet along the Syrian-Turkish border, Moscow is well aware of the costs of a complete breakdown in its relations with Ankara and — at least so far — appears set on avoiding that outcome. Nevertheless, neither Putin nor his fellow strongman Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan seem likely to find it easy to climb down from the rhetorical heights they have scaled in contesting one another’s accounts of what happened and why. And the longer the current situation lasts, the more perilous it could become.

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has stated that his government will act “pragmatically” in imposing economic sanctions on Turkey, telling his assembled vice prime ministers that “the decisions we make should be maximally sensitive for the Turkish side and minimally costly to our economic interests.” Clarifying this in an article in Russia’s official government newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta — helpfully titled “We don’t need Turkish vegetables” — Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich explained that the government was working to limit any impact on consumer prices. 

Russian officials appear considerably more sanguine about new limits on travel and tourism to Turkey; apparently, some hope that Russians will see their country’s own Black Sea destinations in Sochi and Russian-occupied Crimea as attractive alternatives. Indeed, the head of Russia’s federal agency for tourism projects a decline of 40% in tourist travel outside the country (due to the bombing of a Russian passenger jet in Egypt and the sanctions on Turkey) and expects “a massive redistribution of tourist flows favoring domestic tourism.”

Still, Russia’s leaders — including Putin — are generally exercising restraint. Moscow has not moved to halt its lucrative energy trade with Turkey, which (with other natural resources) accounted for nearly 70% of Russia’s exports to Turkey and some $17 billion in 2013, though it has suspended talks on a major pipeline project and a nuclear power plant. The well-connected analyst Andranik Migranyan, a professor at the Moscow State Institute for International Relations, told Al-Monitor that the pipeline and the nuclear plant may never happen — the nuclear deal in particular was “unfavorable” for Moscow and was a “long-term investment in Turkey, thinking that Turkey would be a long-term friend.” That looks quite unlikely today.