Putin vows more sanctions, retaliation for Turkey’s Su-24 downing

PanARMENIAN.Net - Russian President Vladimir Putin said Turkey's shooting down of a Russian military jet was a war crime and that the Kremlin would punish Ankara with additional sanctions, signaling fallout from the incident would be long-lasting and serious, Reuters reports.

Minutes after Putin had finished speaking, his energy minister, Alexander Novak, said Russia was halting talks with Ankara on the Turkish Stream gas pipeline, a symbolic move designed to emphasize the strength of Kremlin anger.

Putin, who made the comments during his annual state of the nation speech to his country's political elite on Thursday, December 3, said Russia would not forget the incident and that he continued to regard it as a terrible betrayal.

"We are not planning to engage in military saber-rattling (with Turkey)," said Putin, after asking for a moment's silence for the two Russian servicemen killed in the immediate aftermath of the incident, and for Russian victims of terrorism.

"But if anyone thinks that having committed this awful war crime, the murder of our people, that they are going to get away with some measures concerning their tomatoes or some limits on construction and other sectors, they are sorely mistaken."

Turkey would have cause to regret its actions "more than once," he said, promising Russia's retaliatory actions would be neither hysterical nor dangerous.

The rhetoric Putin used will dash hopes of any early rapprochement and deepen a rift between the two countries.

Repeating a call for a new broad international coalition against terrorism, Putin, in an overt reference to Turkey, called on countries to avoid "double standards, contacts with any terrorist organizations, and any attempts to use them for their own ends."

Russia has already banned some Turkish food imports, including selected fruit and vegetables, as part of a wider retaliatory sanctions package.

Nine days after the incident, Moscow and Ankara still have starkly different versions of what happened and Putin is furious Erdogan has not apologized for the episode, something the Turkish leader has said he will not do.