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Surviving Russian Pilot Says Turkey Gave No Warning


Captain Konstantin Murakhtin (center with his back to the camera),answers journalists' questions at Hmeimim air base in Latakia on November 25. Murakhtin was rescued by Russian forces after his plane was downed by Turkey near the Turkish-Syrian border.
Captain Konstantin Murakhtin (center with his back to the camera),answers journalists' questions at Hmeimim air base in Latakia on November 25. Murakhtin was rescued by Russian forces after his plane was downed by Turkey near the Turkish-Syrian border.

The surviving pilot of a Russian warplane shot down by Turkey on the Turkish-Syrian border says he had received no warning.

In his first interview since the incident on November 24, Konstantin Murakhtin told Russian state media on November 25 that there had been "not contact at all" before his warplane was shot down by Turkish fighter jets.

Turkey insists it gave 10 warnings in the space of five minutes before the plane was shot down.

"There was no warning, not by radio exchange nor visually," said Murakhtin, who was rescued by Russian special forces.

His co-pilot was killed by gunfire as he parachuted from the burning plane.

Murakhtin, speaking from the Hmeymim airbase in Syria, said he knew the region he had been flying in "very well" and that the warplane had not been in Turkish airspace "even for a second."

Based on reporting by AFP and BBC

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