Turkish F-16s 'Ambushed' Russian Su-24: Russian Air Force Chief

Russian Air Force Chief has accused Turkey of ambushing the Russian Su-24 before shooting it down using an air-to-air missile last week.

According to the statement released by the Russian Ministry of Defense the operation was planned beforehand and the fighters were ready to attack from the air ambush over the territory of Turkey.

The Russian MoD claimed the interception of a Su-24M aircraft from the stand-by position on the ground from the military airfield Dyabakyr is impossible as the necessary time for approaching the target exceeds the minimum time needed for attack by 12 minutes.

Objective monitoring data received from the Syrian radar stations confirmed the presence of two F-16’s in the duty zone from 9:11 till 10:26 min (for 1 h 15 min) at the altitude of 2400 metres, that shows that the operation was planned beforehand and the fighters were ready to attack from the air ambush over the territory of Turkey, the statement said.

Actions of the Turkish aircraft after launching of missiles over the territory of Syria ­- the wind-down turn with loss of altitude and going under the lower range line of the air defence means - also speaks for the fact that the perfidious crew's actions were planned beforehand, it said.

The Russian MoD also blamed the Turkish media for its complacency. It said, the strike with the "air-to-air" missile was made by a pilot of the F-16 aircraft of the Turkish Air Force at 10:24 and just in an hour and a half the video showing the falling warplane was published on the YouTube video hosting site by the Turkish private television company. The angle of the footage allows defining the possible place of recording. It is situated in the area controlled by the radical terrorist groupings consisting of people from the North Caucasus and the former republics of the USSR. The operator had known in advance the time and place, which would be the best for recording the exclusive footage.