Downed Su-24 plane shows NATO certain willingness
The Russian Su-24 warplane shot down over the Turkish territory Nov. 24 demonstrates the NATO willingness to escalate the conflict with Russia, Sergey Markov, the person empowered to act for the president of the Russian Federation, the member of the Russian Public Chamber and political analyst, told Trend Nov. 24.
"It is clear that this will greatly deteriorate Russia-Turkey relations,” he said. “The Russian authorities said that the plane was shot down over the Syrian territory, while the Turkish authorities said that the plane was flying over the Turkish territory for a few seconds. But this is of legal importance, rather than political."
“The incident is very serious,” he said. “This is the first military clash between the forces of Russia and NATO over the past decades.”
"Obviously, this was agreed with the political leadership of the NATO countries,” he said. “Therefore, this testifies to the desire of the leadership of the NATO countries to escalate the conflict with Russia."
“Russia thinks that it was the revenge for more than 1,000 oil tankers, destroyed by Russia,” Markov said.
"These oil tankers were engaged in the illegal trade between the Islamic State terrorist organization and Turkey,” he said. “And, apparently, those who suffered great losses, achieved downing of the Russian warplane in revenge."
Markov said that it is also possible that the US intelligence services are involved.
“Perhaps, the US military intelligence services misinformed the Turkish authorities, in particular, that the Russian plane was flying over Turkey, through certain people in the Turkish military intelligence services,” he said.
The Russian air forces destroyed several oil tankers with crude oil moving towards Iraq in the Syrian province of Deir Ez-Zor November 13. Crude oil is processed there and later sold on the market.
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