Russian Foreign Ministry: By downing Russian plane Turkey took ISIS side

Russian Federation insisted that its plane never violated the Turkish airspace as Turkey claimed.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday said Turkey’s political leaders had been encouraging the Islamisation of Turkish society, something he said was a problem, Russian agencies quoted him as saying.

The Russian military will provide aerial cover by fighter jets for every airstrike against Daesh in Syria, it will boost air defence by deploying the guided missile cruisers off the Latakia coast, and suspend all military-to-military contacts with Turkey.

The defense ministry said a Russian soldier was also killed when a helicopter search-and-rescue operation came under fire although others were evacuated. The pilot said he is extremely familiar with the area he flies and would have known if he had crossed into Turkish airspace. Syrian rebels said they captured the pilot after he died upon landing, and would offer his body in exchange for Syrian prisoners. Russian Federation maintains the jet was in skies over Syria, where Russian Federation has been conducting air raids since early October.

Canada’s North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ambassador says Russian Federation has repeatedly fallen short of its commitment to inform Turkey of its bombing runs over Syria in the weeks leading to Tuesday’s downing of one of its jets by Turkish forces.

“We have serious doubts about this being an unpremeditated act, it really looks like a planned provocation”, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said at a press conference in Moscow after speaking to Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu.

“This is only natural in the light of Turkey’s unpredictable actions”, Peskov said.

This comes a day after Putin declared both pilots dead after Turkish jets shot down their Su-24 aircraft.

Mr Lavrv did however rule out military retaliation, saying Russian Federation is not going to war with Turkey. The alliance has backed Turkey’s version of events, although it, too, is calling for “diplomacy and de-escalation” to resolve the situation.

Turkey and Russian Federation share bitter relation as Turkey, its North Atlantic Treaty Organisation allies and the US want Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down, while Russian Federation supports the president.

Meanwhile, Lavrov denounced US-led coalition airstrikes for not being effective in weakening ISIS and other Islamist radical groups operating within Syria.