Russian fighter plane shot down at Turkish-Syrian border

A Russian fighter plane has been shot down in Syria close to the border with Turkey, Russia’s defense ministry said today. The statement followed an announcement from Turkish officials that they had brought down a foreign military jet in the area for allegedly violating their country’s airspace.

The Russian ministry posted a statement saying that one of its SU-24 jets had, “according to preliminary information,” been shot down “as a result of fire from the ground” over Syria. It said that early reports suggest the plane’s pilots had succeeded in ejecting.

The ministry’s statements conflicted with comments from Turkish officials, who insisted that Turkish fighter jets shot down a plane today after it crossed into their country’s airspace. Turkey’s military said two of its F16s fighters had fired on the jet after giving given 10 warnings over five minutes to exit the area.

President Vladimir Putin said, “Today’s loss is connected with a blow, that was given us as a stab in the back from the accomplices of terrorists. I cannot qualify what happened today as anything else.”

Russian officials have said the plane never left Syrian airspace at any time and appeared to be seeking to downplay the possibility that it had been targeted by Turkey.

Turkey is a NATO member and strongly opposes the government of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria, which Russia has been backing with an air campaign for the past two months.

Video broadcast by Turkish media showed a fighter plane ablaze and crashing into the ground close to the Syria-Turkey border. Turkish media reported the plane had crashed on the Syrian side of the border.

Turkey had warned Russia last week to halt its airstrikes in the area close to the border where the plane was brought down, summoning the Russian ambassador and warning of serious consequences if the strikes, which are in support of a Syrian government offensive against rebels in the area, continued.

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