Here's a video from RFE/RL's Current Time TV:
Russian Defense Ministry officials claimed this week that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his family are involved in the illegal oil trade with Islamic State militants. The accusations came as tensions reached new highs after Turkey brought down a Russian warplane near the Syrian border on November 24. RFE/RL asked Turks in Istanbul what they think of the Russian statements.
France Issues Guide To Surviving A Terror Attack
France's government has issued a guide on how survive a terror attack, Reuters reports.
The guide follows the November 13 terrorist attacks in Paris, claimed by IS, in which 130 people were killed.
The guide is in cartoon-strip form and will appear on posters in public places and will also be available online.
It recommends three main responses to a terror attack: run away, hide and raise the alarm.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov has discussed "issues of a coordinated response to the terrorist threat represented by the IS group" with Simon Gass, the Political Director of the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office, RIA Novosti reports.
The BBC has published a report with interviews with Syrian Turkomans -- ethnic Turks living in Turkey -- whose homeland in the Turkmen mountains has come under attack from Russian air strikes. Many have fled to Turkey.
Twenty-five year old Surayya and her family finally left their village and fled to Hatay in the last week of November, the BBC reports.
Until recently their home in the Turkmen mountains had been a little-known corner of a wider war.
But then Russian warplanes began bombing their village.
"We couldn't even fire up our ovens," she recalls. "At night we had to make sure all the lights were switched off because as soon as they see a light they bomb it."
Turkey has offered support to Turkoman armed brigades in the area, while some say they are helped by Al-Qaeda's affiliate in Syria, the Al-Nusra Front.
Calls To Rename Moscow Street Where Turkish Embassy Located After Su-24 Pilot
Russia's League of Assistance for Defense Enterprises (LADE) has called on the mayor of Moscow to rename the street where the Turkish Embassy is located in honor of Oleg Peshkov, the pilot killed in the November 24 downing of a Russian warplane near the Syrian border.
"Members of LADE suggest renaming the 7th Rostovsky Pereulok, where the Embassy of Turkey is located in Moscow, and also suggest the idea of erecting a bust or a statue of the killed Russian military pilot, made using LADE funds," reads an open letter published this morning on LADE's website.
Peshkov was buried this week in Lipetsk.
LADE is "an all-Russian public organization founded in 1992 at the initiative of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation to establish and strengthen links between industry and the military agency, protect the interests of enterprises of the military-industrial complex," according to TASS.
France Carries Out Surveillance Flights Over IS-Controlled Libya
French military aircraft have carried out reconnaisance and intelligence flights over areas of Libya controlled by the IS group and plan to carry out additional missions, a presidential press document has shown, Reuters reports.
Two missions were carried out on November 20 and 21 around the towns of Sirte and Tobruk. Sirte is controlled by IS.
Russian economic sanctions will not bring Turkey to its knees, Turkey's Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has said, RFE/RL's Radio Svoboda reports.
Davutoglu once again defended Turkey's actions in downing a Russian warplane near the Syrian border on November 24, saying the Su-24 jet had violated Turkish airspace and that Turkey would not apologize for defending its borders.
The Turkish prime minister also said that "for moral reasons" Turkey could not allow planes that were bombing areas where Turkomans lived in Syria to fly in its airspace.
Davotuglu made his comments from Azerbaijan's capital, Baku, where he is on a visit.
Russian Media Dig Into Past Of 'Jihadi Tolik'
Russia's Life News, a pro-Kremlin site with ties to the country's security services, has been digging into the past of the IS militant who beheaded a Russian citizen on video earlier this week.
The militant, which Life News earlier named as Anatoly Zemlyanka, 28, has been nicknamed "Jihadi Tolik," a nod to Mohammed Emwazi, the man alleged to be the IS militant seen in a number of IS videos showing the beheadings of hostages and who had the nickname "Jihadi John."
Zemlyanka is thought to have joined IS in 2013.
Life News reports that it has interviewed Zemlyanka's brother, Taras Zemlyanka, who says that he had not spoken to his brother for three years and had no idea he had gone to Syria.
"The family doesn't have any relationship with him. I don't even know what he's doing. I also don't know what religion he had. I had no idea he had become an IS executioner," Taras Zemlyanka is quoted as saying.
"Jihadi Tolik" had left his hometown of Noyabrsk and was living abroad, his relatives said.
The IS militant had been an unremarkable student who his former schoolteachers struggled to remember, Life News said.
"He was a bad student, his average grade was a D plus, let's say. Best case -- C minus. He wasn't a hooligan. On the contrary, he was quiet, an inconspicuous meek sort," his former teacher recalled.
Russia has asked Canada to remove a website that has published photographs and details of Russian pilots involved in air strikes in Syria, the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry's Department for New Challenges and Threats, Ilya Rogachev, has said.
The website is under Canadian jurisdiction, Rogachev said according to pro-Kremlin RIA Novosti.
The Canadian authorities are currently "considering" the matter, Rogachev added.