A Russian warplane has been shot down by Turkey on the Syrian border
BBCA screenshot from a BBC video showing the crash.
A Russian military jet was shot down Tuesday along the border between Turkey and Syria, with Moscow and Ankara subsequently providing conflicting accounts of what led up to the incident.
According to Reuters, the Turkish military says it shot down a Russian jet that violated the country's airspace and that the aircraft did not respond to repeated warnings.
Sputnik News, a Russian state-owned media service, received confirmation from the defense ministry in Moscow that the jet, a Su-24 fighter, belonged to Russia.
Turkey says the jet was shot down by Turkish F-16 fighter aircraft after violating Turkish airspace, while the Russian defense ministry has suggested that the plane was shot from the ground while it was in Syrian airspace.
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu asserted on Tuesday that it was Turkey's "national duty" to "take all kinds of measures" to defend its borders, AP reported.
In a statement, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday called the act a "stab in the backby the associates of terrorism," and he said the jet had been shot down with surface-to-air missiles.
He promised that Tuesday's "tragic event" would have "serious consequences for Russian-Turkish relations."
The jet was carrying two people, both of whom reportedly ejected. According to CNN in Turkey,one of the pilots has been captured by Turkmen forces, rebels in Syria with close ethnic and historical links to Turkey.
According to the Associated Press, the rebel group that captured the surviving pilot says the other was dead upon landing.
Here's what the crash looked like:
NATO has reportedly called an "extraordinary meeting" after the incident. Turkey is part of NATO, whose member nations are bound by the treaty to defend one another from aggression.
A US official told The Daily Beast that the coalition had received no warning from Turkey before it downed the Russian plane. "They just did it," the official said.
A White House spokesman declined to comment further. The Pentagon didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
Turkey has reportedly summoned a Russian envoy to Ankara to discuss the incident.
The Turkish military published a radar map demonstrating the reported flight path of the jet that it shot down, which Ankara is using as proof that the jet violated the country's airspace:
CNN Turkey
Russian military forces are working in support of embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad, and their presence has grown considerably since September, when airstrikes began.
Here's what a Sukhoi Su-24 looks like:
REUTERS/Shamil ZhumatovA Sukhoi Su-24 dropping flares during a joint Kazakh-Russian military exercise at Otar military range, some 150 kilometers (93 miles) west of Almaty, in 2008.
According to Reuters, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the jet crashed in Latakia province, a part of northwestern Syria bordering Turkey. There was reportedly bombing in the area earlier, as well as fighting between rebel groups and the government over the past week.
On Friday, Turkey summoned Russian ambassador Andrey G. Karlov and called for animmediate end to Russia's military operation close to the Turkish border. Turkey accused Russia of bombing villages in northern Syria inhabited by Syrian Turkmen.
"It was stressed that the Russian side's actions were not a fight against terror, but they bombed civilian Turkmen villages and this could lead to serious consequences," a statement released by the Turkish Foreign Ministry said.
According to Turkish media, Russian helicopters were searching the area the jet came down in:
Here, from Haaretz, is the full video reportedly showing the jet crash:
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