The despatch of the weapons, which officials later said would be the S-400 missile system, is likely to be viewed as a stark warning to Turkey not to try to shoot down any more Russian planes.
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The crew ejected, and one pilot was shot dead by rebels as he parachuted to the ground. The other pilot was reportedly killed after bailing out near the Turkish-Syrian border.
The incident inflamed tensions between Turkey and Russia, and Russian President Vladimir Putin warned of “significant consequences”. There was no sign Russian Federation wanted a military escalation, or to jeopardize its main objective in the region: to rally worldwide support for its view on how the conflict in Syria should be resolved.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says his country’s air force did not know that the plane they shot down on Tuesday was Russian when, according to RT.
He said the Turkish action came after Russian planes successfully targeted the oil infrastructure used by Islamic State, alleging that Turkey benefited from the oil trade.
Previously warm relations between Russia and Turkey have soured after Turkey on Tuesday shot down a Russian Su-24 on a bombing mission near the Syria border – an act that has infuriated Russian leaders. “It looks very much like a planned provocation” and the question arises whether Turkey is defending areas of Syria to protect rebel infrastructure, he said.
All the tour operators of Russian Federation are now canceling charter flights to Turkey and have stopped selling tours, Dmitry Gorin, vice-president of the Association of Tour Operators of Russian Federation, told RIA Novosti Nov. 25.
Ankara and Moscow are already on starkly opposing sides in the four-year Syrian civil war, with Turkey wanting to see the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad while Russian Federation is one of his last remaining allies.
As the recriminations flew, Moscow said its special forces had helped rescue one of the pilots alongside Syrian troops and that the serviceman was now safe at a Russian air base in Syria. “It fell in Syrian territory four kilometres from the border with Turkey”, Putin said.
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In Moscow several hundred young activists hurled stones and eggs at Turkey’s embassy and brandished anti-Turkish placards in a brief protest over the jet downing.
