"Vladimir Putin and Recep Erdogan are throwing punches like a pair of equally rated gladiators, but the commercial war that the one has sparked and the other is waging can be won only by one: Russia," the media outlet noted.
"Russia needs the roughly $4 billion worth of fruits and vegetables it has been buying in Turkey since the sanctions, but it will find such produce in other warm countries, just like it will find alternative clients for the $1.5 billion in grains that it sold Turkey last year," MarketWatch noted.
Turkey's tourism will also take a hit, losing millions of Russian visitors. As many as 3.3 million Russians (10 percent of all tourists coming to Turkey annually) are estimated to have vacationed in the country in 2014.
"Farmers whose harvests will lose the Russian market, and employees of the hotels and restaurants that will soon lose their Russian clientele, will join those Turks who already grapple with more than a million Syrian refugees' pressure on the Turkish labor market," the media outlet explained.
The recently introduced restrictive measures do not cover gas supplies. If they do, things will get worse for Ankara.
"Yes, $20 billion is a lot of money even for Russia, but it's not the kind of sum it can't afford to lose. Turkey, on the other hand, if deprived of Russia's gas, will nearly come to a standstill," MarketWatch noted.
Should Turkey decide to add fuel to the fire, Russia's economic pressure will only increase. It "will not abate until someone in Ankara does what neither Putin nor Erdogan has ever done: surrender," the media outlet concluded.
