Russian Official Slams 'Coward' Countries for Ignoring Turkey's Aggression

Inability of some states to condemn Turkey for the aggressive downing of the Russian plane proves their "cowardice."

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Some countries react in a cowardly manner to Turkey shooting down Russia's Su-24 bomber in Syria, the Russian deputy prime minister said Thursday.

"We are certainly analyzing other countries' reaction to the Turkish Air Force's actions, we see that this reaction is often cowardly," Dmitry Rogozin said during a meeting with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem.

According to Rogozin, inability of some states to condemn Turkey for this act of aggression proves their "cowardice."

"And, certainly, we think that masks have been removed. And today, it is perhaps even clearer whom to deal with in order to achieve our most important goal — the political settlement in Syria," Rogozin stressed.

The Russian Su-24 bomber was shot down by a Turkish F-16 on Tuesday morning while conducting operations over Syria, where Moscow has been targeting the Islamic State terrorist group.

Ankara claimed it downed the Russian airplane because it had violated Turkish airspace. Both the Russian General Staff and the Syrian Air Defense Command confirmed that the Su-24 had never crossed into Turkish airspace and had been downed on Syrian territory.

One of the pilots from the downed Su-24 was rescued, the other pilot was killed by fire from the ground after ejecting from the plane. The rescued pilot said the Su-24 bomber had not violated the Turkish airspace.