Pilot: Turkey did not issue warning before downing Russian warplane

A video made public Tuesday showed Turkmen fighters shooting at the Russian pilots as they parachuted to the ground after abandoning their doomed plane. Turkish military claimed that the pilots of the Russian jet ignored 10 warnings in five minutes before its fighters shot down the plane.

Downing Street said that Ahmet Davutoglu had phoned Mr Cameron on Tuesday to explain that Turkey had taken protective action after the Russian jet was warned “several times” not to violate its air space.

Russia announced Thursday that it will impose restrictions on Turkish food being imported into the country amid tensions over the downing of a Russian warplane earlier in the week, according to reports.

Both Murakhtin and the other pilot, Lt Col Oleg Peshkov, ejected from the plane after it was hit by an F-16.

A Russian Marine dispatched to rescue the pilots was also killed in the operation.

Capt Murakhtin was speaking from the Hmeymim airbase, where Russia’s aircraft are based. He also denied flying into Turkish airspace because the pilots knew the region “like the back of their hand”.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday that Turkey’s downing of a Russian warplane “looks like a planned provocation”, but that Russia is not going to war with Turkey. Turkey opposes Syrian President Bashar Assad, and Russian Federation intervened there militarily to shore up his rule.

The source told the newspaper that the Kremlin was working on measures to limit Russia’s imports from Turkey.

There are claims and counter-claims about what actually happened and they will need to be tested, she said. Putin said the Russian plane remained in Syria’s skies when it was shot down.

The Turkish military on Wednesday released what it says is an audio recording of one of those warnings, reported The Guardian.

Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stated that Russia did not have an intention to go to war with Turkey because of the attack on the Russian Su-24.

The United States has for more than a year been leading a coalition that has flown more than 8,000 bombing runs against Islamic State targets in Syria and Iraq. “We are just defending our security and the rights of our brothers”, Erdogan said in a televised speech from the Turkish city of Istanbul on Wednesday.

But as Russian leaders continued to speak of Turkey’s government with hostility, Russia’s ambassador to France, Alexandre Orlov, told Europe 1 radio that Moscow would still be ready to include Turkey – along with the USA and France – in the formation of a joint command to combat ISIL.