A Turkmen commander said missiles fired from Russian warships in the Mediterranean were also hitting the area, as well as heavy artillery shelling. He added that “one gets the impression that the Turkish leadership is deliberately steering the Russian-Turkish relations into the dead end, this is regrettable”. “We have questions only to the Turkish leadership”.
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At a time that terrorists are butchering civilians in one country after another, including Turkish and Russian civilians in the ground and on the air, downing the Russian warplane would only complicate the situation in Syria and hearten terrorists. A marine involved in the rescue operation was killed, the BBC reported.
Capt. Konstantin Murakhtin said he and fellow pilot Lt. Col. Oleg Peshkov were not given any visual or radio warnings by the Turkish government. The surviving pilot managed to evade capture, the Kremlin said. The pilots’ names have not been released.
Ankara has said the plane was repeatedly warned to change course after encroaching on Turkish air space but Moscow has denied that its warplane flew over Turkish territory. Based on the reports from Russian Federation on Wednesday, that information appears to be incorrect. The jet crashed into tents in Latakia’s Yamadi village near the Syrian border where Turkmens are now staying. The incident has created a political fallout between Russian Federation and Turkey.
It was the first downing of a Russian plane by a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation country in more than half a century and marked a risky escalation in the long-running tension between the Kremlin and the 28-country military alliance.
President Tayyip Erdogan made no apology, saying his nation had simply been defending its own security and the “rights of our brothers in Syria”.
President Putin has described the downing of the plane as a “stab in the back”, and warned of serious consequences.
According to Turkish armed forces, the warnings were issued by the Diyarbakir airbase and not by pilots.
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Russian Federation launched strikes in support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on September 30, over a year after a US-led coalition began strikes in the country against the Islamic State group. You need to understand the difference in speed between a tactical bomber like a Su-24, and that of the F16.
