Russia reveals details of ISIS-Turkey oil smuggling

As the crisis between Turkey and Russia gets deeper over the Russian plane downed by Turkey, Russian Ministry of Defense has released footage of the oil trade between Turkey and ISIS.

As the crisis between Turkey and Russia gets deeper over the Russian plane downed by Turkey, Russian Ministry of Defense has released footage of the oil trade between Turkey and ISIS.

The Russian Defense Ministry held a major briefing on new findings concerning ISIS funding in Moscow on Wednesday.

The Russian official said Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his family is directly involved in illegal oil trade with Islamic State militants.

“Today, we are presenting only some of the facts that confirm that a whole team of bandits and Turkish elites stealing oil from their neighbors is operating in the region,” Antonov said, adding that this oil “in large quantities” enters the territory of Turkey via “live oil pipelines,” consisting of thousands of oil trucks.

However, since the start of Russia’s anti-terrorist operation in Syria on September 30, the income of Islamic State militants from illegal oil smuggling has been significantly reduced, the ministry said.

At the briefing the ministry presented photos of oil trucks, videos of airstrikes on ISIS oil storage facilities and maps detailing the movement of smuggled oil. More evidence is to be published on the ministry's website in the coming days, Lieutenant-General Sergey Rudskoy said.

“Space reconnaissance established that after crossing the border tanker trucks moves further into Turkey,” Rudskoy said. Then oil was delivered to other countries.

For the past two months, Russia’s airstrikes hit 32 oil complexes, 11 refineries, 23 oil pumping stations, Rudskoy said, adding that the Russian military had also destroyed 1,080 trucks carrying oil products.

“These [airstrikes] helped reduce the trade of the oil illegally extracted on the Syrian territory by almost 50 percent.”

The income of this terrorist organization was about $3 million per day. After two months of Russian airstrikes their income was about $1.5 million a day,” Lieutenant-General Sergey Rudskoy said.