Nato and the United Nations have called for calm in the wake of the shooting down of a Russian fighter jet by Turkish aircraft that drew warnings of “serious consequences” from Vladimir Putin.
The Russian president described the incident over Turkey’s volatile border with Syria on Tuesday – the first time a Nato member state has shot down a Russian warplane since the Korean war in the 1950s – as a “stab in the back by the accomplices of terrorists” and claimed the Russian plane, a Su-24 bomber, had been downed inside Syria while in action against Chechen militants.
In signs of deepening divisions between the two countries, Russia warned its citizens not to go on holiday in Turkey and its defence ministry cut off contacts with its Turkish counterpart. On Tuesday night, its general staff confirmed that one of the pilots of the downed jet had been killed and a marine died while on a rescue mission. The fate of the jet’s second pilot was unclear.