Tuesday, November 24, 2015

Turkey shoots down Russian jet near border, Turkmen rebels kill ejected pilots, down Russian rescue helicopter

(Reuters) Turkey shot down a Russian warplane near the Syrian border on Tuesday, saying the jet had repeatedly violated its air space, in one of the most serious publicly acknowledged clashes between a NATO member country and Russia for half a century.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said the plane had been attacked when it was 1 km (0.62 mile) inside Syria and warned of "serious consequences" for what he termed a stab in the back administered by "the accomplices of terrorists".

"We will never tolerate such crimes like the one committed today," Putin said, as Russian and Turkish shares fell on fears of an escalation between the former Cold War enemies.























More now from the Russian military, and about that new statement that a marine on a helicopter sent in to search for the crew of the downed jet also died.

Russia’s military general staff is quoted by Russian news agencies as saying that one of the pilots of the Su-24 warplane that was shot down by Turkey was killed by groundfire as he parachuted from his crippled plane.

General staff spokesman Lt. Gen. Sergei Rudskoi, added that rebels in Syria fired on a Russian helicopter that was searching for the two pilots of the Su-24.

The shooting killed one crew member on the Mi-8 helicopter and forced it to land in neutral territory, he says.

The rest of the crew was evacuated. Rudskoi also said that Russian radar data showed that Turkish warplanes had violated Syrian airspace in the course of shooting down the Russian plane


Posted by Watcher at 11/24/2015 02:30:00 PM | | E-mail this article

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