Turkey has asked russia, the aggressor nation, to approve the transfer to third countries of the S-400 air defense missile systems that Ankara purchased from moscow in 2019. In doing so, the country hopes to pave the way for the acquisition of F-35 Lightning II fighter jets.
Bloomberg reported this on Friday, July 10, citing its own sources.
The agency’s unnamed sources said that Turkish authorities had put forward this initiative in recent weeks. For several months, Ankara had been proposing to moscow that it return the S-400 systems, but this idea did not gain widespread support.
Negotiations regarding the air defense systems began shortly before the start of the NATO summit in Ankara, which took place earlier this week. At the summit, US President Donald Trump indicated that he might soon lift his own ban on the sale of F-35 fighter jets to Turkey.
The proposal to transfer the S-400 systems to third countries came after Turkey suggested that it could keep the air defense systems but allow the US to oversee their operation. Bloomberg sources noted that this idea did not find support among US senators.
Currently, Ankara is not using the russian air defense systems, even though they are part of the Turkish military’s arsenal.
The US banned the sale of F-35 fighter jets to Turkey in 2019, when Turkey reached an agreement with russia to purchase several S-400 air defense systems. At that time, Washington made it clear that Ankara would have to abandon these systems in order to rejoin the F-35 program.
As the Ukrainian News agency earlier reported, in September 2025, Turkish media reported that russia had asked Turkey to return the S-400 systems previously sold to it. The request came as moscow is unable to fulfill orders for other countries, since all of its systems are engaged in the war against Ukraine.
As a reminder, in July 2023, a number of OSINT analysts reported that Turkey had granted NATO experts access to russian S-400 air defense systems, specifically the 91N6 radar unit.
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