Russian airstrikes restore Syrian military balance of power

The format allows an opportunity for Russia’s leader to talk about some of the issues the nation has been facing, how it has fared and what to expect in the year ahead. It elicited no laughter from the audience.

Russia’s economy is forecast to shrink 3.8% in 2015. “The current line maintained by Turkish authorities does not allow for positive forecasts, both in terms of their complete unwillingness to acknowledge the responsibility for an unprovoked attack on a Russian Su-24, as well as in terms of getting rid of double standards in the fight against global terrorism”, Meshkov said. On Wednesday, Moscow’s deputy foreign minister said Turkey should pay compensation for shooting down the plane near the Syrian-Turkish border.

Putin said Russian Federation was ready to persuade separatists in eastern Ukraine that a compromise was needed in order to achieve a political settlement of the conflict there.

“We never said there were no people there who were carrying out certain tasks including in the military sphere”, Putin told an annual news conference.

Mr Putin told journalists that an election must be prepared in which Syrians themselves will determine its leadership.

On Wednesday, US State Department spokesman John Kirby said the US position on al-Assad had not changed. “Turkey is not acting in an aggressive way toward Russia’s military targets and our main hope is not to escalate tensions”.

Representatives of 18 countries, the Arab League and the European Union – who met in Vienna in October and are steering efforts for a peace deal – will meet again on Friday in New York, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said, according to state news agency TASS.