ANKARA, February 28. /TASS/. Turkey doesn’t intend to turn away from Russia or Ukraine and will ride out the Russian-Ukrainian crisis successfully, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday.

"Turkey has always fully complied with its commitments as part of institutions and alliances where it’s a member," he said, following a cabinet meeting. "They are first of all the UN, NATO and the EU."

"Turkey will not give up its national interests but won’t neglect the regional and global balance either," the president went on to say. "We won’t turn away from Russia or Ukraine."

"No one should doubt that we will make it through the crisis in the north of the Black Sea," he said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on February 24 that, amid a strong escalation of the situation in Donbass and in response to a request by the heads of the Donbass republics, he had made a decision to carry out a special military operation. He stressed that Moscow had no plans of occupying Ukrainian territories, but aims to demilitarize and denazify the country. The Russian Defense Ministry said that Russian troops are not targeting Ukrainian cities, but are incapacitating Ukrainian military infrastructure, therefore there are no threats to the civilian population.