Russia says its Su-24 bomber did not violate Turkish airspace, but Turkish officials say it did. Putin hypothesised that even if the plane did briefly enter Turkish airspace, it was not a threat.
In Moscow at least, the event is being seen as something larger than an attack on an errant jet.
"The conflict happened because Russia was attacking rebel groups allied with Turkey," said Alexander Baunov, an analyst at the Moscow Carnegie Centre, when asked about the possibility of an accidental clash.
"It's wrong to say that this happened because of anything like crowded skies."
The Russian Defence Ministry announced yesterday that Russian fighter jets will now escort the bombers, and Moscow will move into Syria powerful new ground-to-air missiles that can reach across the country and far into Turkey from the Russian air base in the province of Latakia on Syria's Mediterranean coast.
Analysts say Russia will choose from a menu of asymmetric responses in retaliation, including informal economic sanctions and providing military aid to Turkey's enemies, including the Kurds.
"Of course, Russia is going to intensify strikes on that part of Syria and on those groups that are affiliated with Turkey," said Fyodor Lukyanov, a prominent Russian political analyst.
Russia probably would not scale back its deployment in Syria because of the incident, he said.
Yesterday, Turkey's state-run news agency, Anadolu, reported that Russian airstrikes targeted Turkish aid vehicles in the Syrian border town of Azzaz, killing at least seven drivers.
The town is a hub for supplies being delivered from Turkey to Syrian rebels fighting government forces in the nearby city of Aleppo. The details of the incident could not be assessed independently.
Shady al-Ouaineh, a media representative for Determined Storm, a rebel group associated with the Free Syrian Army, said in a telephone interview that Russia had dramatically intensified air raids in rebel-held areas of Latakia province. Syrian government forces and allied Shia militiamen from Iraq, backed by Russian air cover, have been trying to advance on some of the last opposition holdouts in the province, said Ouaineh, close to where the Russian jet was shot down.
"It is clear Russia is taking out its revenge on us here," he said.
Russian attitudes toward Turkey, which were reasonably friendly a year ago, have turned cold with alarming speed.
Most Russian tour operators stopped selling travel packages to Turkey yesterday. Protesters in Moscow pelted the Turkish Embassy with eggs and rocks, shattering windows. Russian lawmakers introduced a bill criminalising the denial of the Armenian genocide of 1915. The issue remains highly sensitive: Turkey acknowledges that atrocities occurred but has long denied that what took place constituted a genocide.
President Barack Obama, meeting French President Francois Hollande in Washington on Wednesday, said Turkey had a right to defend its airspace and accused Russia of attacking moderate opposition groups as opposed to Isis. Russia has said it carries out airstrikes only against terrorist organisations.
"They are operating very close to a Turkish border and they are going after a moderate opposition that are supported by not only Turkey but a wide range of countries," Obama said.
At the same time he discouraged "any kind of escalation".
The frantic Russian search for the missing bomber crew was marred by the death of a marine on an Mi-8 helicopter hit by an antitank missile.
"One on board was wounded when he parachuted down and killed in a savage way on the ground by the jihadists," Alexander Orlov, the Russian ambassador to France, told Europe 1 radio. "The other managed to escape and, according to the latest information, has been picked up by the Syrian army and should be going back to the Russian air force base."
Although the Syrian army has managed to halt a rebel offensive, Russian air power has not yet led to a significant turn of the tide in the war.
"Turkey dealt a major blow to Putin, and now he's been placed between a rock and a hard place," said Fawaz A. Gerges, a professor of international relations at the London School of Economics. "There could be mission creep where Russia will get entangled in an unwinnable war."
- Washington Post, Bloomberg
