Russian anti-aircraft missiles sent to Syria

Systems to be based 30 miles from Turkey

Russian President Vladimir Putin (foreground left) tours an armored-vehicle factory Wednesday in the Ural Mountains.
Russian President Vladimir Putin (foreground left) tours an armored-vehicle factory Wednesday in the Ural Mountains.

MOSCOW -- Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday ordered advanced air-defense missile systems to be deployed at a Russian air base in Syria after the downing of one of its warplanes by Turkey.


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A Turkish army truck hauls a self-propelled gun to a position Wednesday on the Syrian border near Yayladagi in southern Turkey as tensions with Russia heightened a day after a Turkish aircraft shot down a Russian bomber that crossed briefly into Turkey’s airspace.

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AP

Russian S-400 missile systems, like this one shown in August 2007, are being deployed at a Russian air base in Syria in response to Turkey’s downing of a Russian bomber. The missiles “will be ready to destroy any aerial target posing a potential danger to our aircraft,” Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Wednesday.

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AP

A policeman walks Wednesday past the Turkish Embassy with broken window planes in Moscow. Windows at the embassy’s compound were shattered on the first and second floors and eggs pelted against the walls on Wednesday after a protest there went sour.

The state-of-the-art S-400 missile systems will be sent to the Hemeimeem air base in Syria's coastal province of Latakia, about 30 miles south of the border with Turkey. The systems have a range of up to 250 miles and are capable of targeting Turkish jets with deadly precision.

Turkey shot down a Russian Su-24 bomber on Tuesday, saying it crossed into its airspace from Syria despite repeated warnings. One of its two pilots was killed by militants after bailing out, while his crew mate was rescued by Syrian army commandos and delivered in good condition to the Russian base early Wednesday.

Putin said the Russian plane was in Syrian airspace when it was shot down. He described Turkey's action as a "crime" and a "stab in the back from the accomplices of terrorism."

He said a warning from the Russian Foreign Ministry for Russians not to visit Turkey was needed "because we can't exclude some other incidents following what happened yesterday, and our citizens in Turkey could be in significant danger."

The Russian leader ordered the military to deploy the S-400s and take other measures that "should be sufficient to ensure flight safety."

Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Wednesday that the Russian missile cruiser Moskva -- with its long-range Fort air-defense system -- has moved closer to shore to protect the Russian aircraft flying missions near Syria's border with Turkey.

"It will be ready to destroy any aerial target posing a potential danger to our aircraft," Shoigu said at a meeting with military officials.

He also said that from now on all Russian bombers will be escorted by fighters on their combat missions in Syria. He said his ministry has severed all contacts with the Turkish military.

Russian Airman Rescued

Russian officials said earlier in the day that one of two Russian pilots shot down was rescued after the first downing of one of their planes by a NATO ally since the Cold War. The other airman was killed "in a savage way" by militiamen, claimed Russia's ambassador to France, Alexandre Orlov.

During the search-and-rescue mission, a Russian Mi-8 helicopter was blown up, apparently by an anti-tank missile fired by Syrian rebels, killing one Russian marine. It marked the first confirmed deaths of Russian soldiers in combat in Syria.

The airman who was rescued, navigator Capt. Konstantin Murakhtin, told the Interfax news agency Wednesday that there had been no warning before a missile slammed into the aircraft, giving him and the pilot no time to dodge the missile.

"There were no warnings from either the radio channel or visually, there was no contact at all," he said from the Russian air base outside Latakia, Syria. He said the other pilot, Lt. Col. Oleg Peshkov, was killed by ground fire from insurgents as his parachute descended.

Murakhtin said that he and Peshkov had stuck to their combat flight plan and were flying their bomber in "normal mode" when the attack occurred.

Given the speed at which they were traveling, he said, the Turkish F-16 involved in the shoot-down should have flown a parallel course as a standard visual warning, the navigator said. "There was not even a threat of crossing into Turkey," Murakhtin said.

Murakhtin's account directly contradicted that of Turkish officials, who said the pilots had been warned 10 times in five minutes not to transgress into Turkish airspace.

Turkey informed the United Nations that two Russian planes disregarded warnings and violated Turkish airspace "to a depth of 1.36 miles and 1.15 miles in length for 17 seconds."

A U.S. military spokesman confirmed that Turkish pilots issued 10 notifications to their Russian counterparts, warning that they were in Turkish airspace and that the Russians did not respond.

"On the radio ... we were able to hear everything that was going on," said Col. Steve Warren, spokesman at the Baghdad headquarters for U.S. forces operating in Iraq and Syria.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov denied the Turkish version of events, that it had no choice but to shoot down the plane, pointing at the 2012 downing of a Turkish warplane by Syria in its airspace. He said Turkey argued in that case that a brief incursion wasn't reason to shoot down its jet. He also pointed at routine violations of Greece's airspace by Turkish combat planes.

'Planned Provocation'

Lavrov, who canceled his planned trip to Turkey after the episode, described the shooting down of the Russian plane as a "planned provocation."

He said the Turkish action came after Russian planes successfully targeted oil infrastructure used by the Islamic State, alleging that Turkey benefited from the oil trade.

Lavrov also said that Turkish territory was used by "terrorists" to prepare attacks in other countries but offered no details. He said Russia "has no intention to go to war with Turkey," but added that Moscow will reconsider its ties with Turkey.

Turkey and its Western allies have backed rebel groups seeking to topple President Bashar Assad in Syria's nearly five-year civil war. Pentagon officials, meanwhile, have raised worries about possible accidents between Russia's air campaign and a U.S.-led coalition conducting airstrikes against the Islamic State.

"We have serious doubts this was an unintended incident and believe this is a planned provocation," Lavrov said after discussions with Turkey's foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu.

Lavrov also said Russia plans to ask the United Nations Security Council to act against states that back terrorists in Syria.

Russia wants to identify the channels of financing for terrorism as part of international negotiations taking place in Vienna to establish a consensus list of terrorist groups in Syria, Lavrov said.

The U.N. Security Council may be the appropriate venue for discussion on sharing information about states backing terrorists in Syria, Lavrov said. "We'll have to take certain countries to task and take a decision to stop this support," he said.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev warned that the "damage will be hard to repair." Russian officials have raised possible responses such as a ban on Turkish airlines or canceling a proposed gas pipeline between the two countries.

"We cannot leave what happened without a response," added Lavrov, the foreign minister.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a written statement that Cavusoglu and Lavrov agreed to a meeting "in the coming days," during a telephone conversation Wednesday, but Lavrov said he has no such plans.

NATO Confirmation

After an emergency NATO meeting Tuesday, the alliance's secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, said intelligence reports confirmed Turkey's version of events and rejected Russia's claim that its aircraft was flying over Syria and had not crossed into Turkish airspace.

"This is a serious situation" that calls for prudence and de-escalation, Stoltenberg said. "We have to avoid that situations, incidents, accidents spiral out of control."

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan echoed those statements on Wednesday, saying his country doesn't wish to escalate tensions with Russia.

Speaking at an Organization of Islamic Cooperation economy meeting in Istanbul, Erdogan said Turkey favors "peace, dialogue and diplomacy." He defended his country's move to shoot down the plane, saying: "No one should expect Turkey to stay silent to border violations or the violation of its rights."

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu also sought to ease tensions, calling Russia Turkey's "friend and neighbor" and insisting relations cannot be "sacrificed to accidents of communication."

In a sign of the tensions, protesters in Moscow hurled eggs and stones at the Turkish Embassy, breaking windows in the compound. Police cleared the area and made some arrests shortly after the protest began.

Davutoglu told his party's lawmakers on Wednesday that Turkey didn't know the nationality of the plane that was brought down on Tuesday until Moscow announced it was Russian.

He said Russia was warned on several occasions that Turkey would take action in case its border is violated, in line with its military rules of engagement.

Davutoglu also said Russia is an "important partner and tops the list of countries with which we have shown great sensitivity in building ties."

The Turkish prime minister, however, criticized Russian and Syrian operations in Syria's Turkmen region, saying there is "not one single" presence of the Islamic State there. Davutoglu demanded that operations there stop immediately.

Information for this article was contributed by Vladimir Isachenkov, Nataliya Vasilyeva, Suzan Fraser and Zeina Karam of The Associated Press; by Andrew Roth, Hugh Naylor, Brian Murphy, Daniela Deane, William Branigin, Thomas Gibbons-Neff and Karen DeYoung of The Washington Post; by Henry Meyer and Andrey Biryukov of Bloomberg News; and by Neil MacFarquhar of The New York Times

A Section on 11/26/2015

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