The world continues to discuss the incident with the Russian bomber downed by a missile from a Turkish F-16 fighter over Syria. During the match of Euroleague Basketball between 'Crvena Zvezda' and 'Real Madrid', Serbian fans staged an action in support of Russia, deploying a huge Russian flag, singing 'Katyusha'. And the Ukrainian people's deputies, to the sound of a brass band, attached a symbolic award in the form of a five-pointed star with a crescent to the fence of the Turkish Embassy in Kiev, thus expressing support for the actions of Ankara. US media also justify the actions of the Turkish pilots who downed the Su-24.
Meanwhile, the director of the Department of Information and Press of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, stated that "we signed an agreement with the United States on the prevention of conflict during the implementation of the anti-terrorist operation on the territory of Syria. Under this agreement the United States, which heads the coalition, should have informed and must inform all the members of the coalition which they head about corresponding actions and the steps which are being taken. We conscientiously fulfill our part of this agreement. There is a question about how it is fulfilled by the United States. After all, I want to say again, and it was stated, and I think nobody denied it, neither from the Turkish side nor from any other side, that the Russian aircraft was executing an appropriate flight in the framework of the counterterrorist operation. This is obvious. This is self-evident. Nobody argues with that. The point is we haven’t violated a single agreement. We’ve acted in keeping with our obligations. There are questions why, under the agreement we signed, the other party took no action."
According to data of the Russian Foreign Ministry, "if a certain country uses US warplanes then, in the course of combat operations, it is to coordinate the delivery of strikes with the US. We know that this is current procedure. It would be important if US reporters asked the US side for an explanation. If this procedure exists and if it has been declared, was it followed in this case? If not, why not? If it was, then how did the US reply to the query? Many of these questions remain open. The cold-blooded manner in which this was done leaves no doubt that the action could not have been an accident, a confluence of circumstances. Nobody doubts this," she stated.
The Director General of the Center for Strategic Studies and Forecasts, Sergey Grinyaev, believes that "the events of recent years in the Middle East are the result of US policy in the region. This is the result of the policy on the formation of a so-called 'Greater Middle East'. And Islamic State is not in the last place in this policy. Today, perhaps, few people doubt the fact that Islamic State is controlled and is one of the tools of Washington."
Grinyaev called the incident with the Su-24 a provocation by the Turkish side: "I doubt that the Turks didn't identify the aircraft as Russian, they definitely identified it, there are no questions about it, yet they deliberately went on this provocation, deliberately went to aggravate the situation, and actually brought it to a peak. The plane was downed, one of the crew members died. And we found ourselves faced with the fact of what happened. Indeed, on the one hand, a week ago, through joint negotiations, by the way, complex negotiations, they were quite difficult, an agreement on the introduction of this signalling procedure for notifying the military of various countries, operating in the sky and on the territory of Syria, has been achieved. Indeed, Turkey is one of the signatories of the agreement as a NATO member, and as a participant of the so-called anti-ISIS coalition, which in fact is nothing more than a tool to support this very ISIS."
Grinyaev is convinced that Turkey implemented a pre-prepared script: "I would not be surprised if a US Air Force pilot or the pilot of some third country controlled this F-16, not a Turkish pilot. Since it is my personal assessment that a Turkish man would probably not commit such actions, because Turkey is an eastern country, large families, large clans, and if it became known who committed this action, the consequences would be severe, not only for this pilot but for many, many of his relatives."
According to the expert, "this provocation is nothing but the trigger of a number of complex geopolitical processes that are now starting to move. These days, these months, they will start moving. And you and I will see their result in the foreseeable future. But it will not, in my opinion, be very comfortable, so to speak, for Russia, if today it fails to work out quite a tough but balanced position on the events taking place, and on the dynamics into which they are trying to drag us. One such instance occured in southeastern Ukraine. They really wanted to drag us into a large protracted war in Ukraine. It did not happen there. The Minsk Agreement is somewhat working. Today, Syria. Today, once again, they want to drag Russia into an open confrontation with NATO, primarily to induce it to active military actions, the use of force in this situation, and then to extend sanctions to strangle Russia economically and politically."
