Following a meeting with French President François Hollande at the Kremlin on Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin rejected the notion that Turkey was unaware the plane it shot down for allegedly violating the nation’s airspace was Russian.
Putin said the insignia were present on the downed aircraft and that also the United States was aware of the plane’s flight path.
“In relation to our aircraft that were allegedly not identified – it’s not possible, it’s not possible,” Putin said according to a translator. “It’s got insignia and you can see it very clearly. These are our planes and you see it very clearly. And I would also like to reiterate that in advance, in accordance with our agreement with the U.S., we gave information where our planes would be working, what altitude, what areas and Turkey is part of that coalition. And they had to know it was the Russian Air Force that was working in that area.”
“If it was an American aircraft, would [Turkey] have struck an American aircraft?” he continued. “And apart from — instead of analyzing this and analyzing this in detail, preventing it in the future – what we see instead or what we hear instead are the statements that they have nothing to apologize for.”
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