Russia Fires Warning Shots at Turkish Ship in Aegean

The Russian Defence Ministry said that it had summoned the Turkish military attache over the incident and one of its warships, the destroyer Smetlivy, had been forced to fire the warning shots on Sunday.

Russia’s Ministry of Defense said the Smetlivy warship fired small arms warning shots as the Turkish vessel neared about 1,800 feet before it turned away.

Despite multiple efforts of the Smetlivy to establish a contact with the Turkish seine vessel, its crew did not respond to radio and semaphore signals as well as signal rockets.

The Russian military said the Turkish ship quickly changed course and moved past the Smetlivy.

The warning shots came from small arms and were strategically aimed to guarantee the Turkish ship was out of harm’s way, the statement stressed.

The Russian defence ministry said the Russian vessel was 22 kilometres from Greek’s Lemnos Island in the northern Aegean Sea.

Tensions between Moscow and Ankara have been heightened since a Turkey downed a Russian warplane along the Syrian border last month, and this could further strain relations. “We need to solve the tension with conversation”, he said, in comments broadcast by TRT Turk. “We are concerned about it”, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatlov told the media on Sunday.

Ties between Moscow and Ankara have sharply deteriorated since the downing of the Russian jet on Nov.24, a move described by Putin as “a dastardly stab in the back”.

Turkey says the Su-24 plane repeatedly violated its airspace but Moscow insists it never strayed from Syria. A Russian pilot is killed parachuting from the jet, and a Russian marine is killed in a subsequent mission that rescues the other pilot. Russian military vessels are involved in Russia’s intervention against rebels in Syria.