Putin: Turkey will regret "more than once" downing of Su-24

Putin: Turkey will regret "more than once" downing of Su-24

Turkey will regret "more than once" its decision to down the Russian Su-24, the Russian leader said, adding:

"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."

However, Putin noted that Moscow would not engage in "nervous, hysterical reaction, risky for us, and for the whole world, a reaction that might yield some external effects or, possibly, brief and timeserving gains," and added:

"There will be nothing like this. Responsibility for the country and the people will be the basis of our actions. We are not going to engage in saber-rattling and we will not do that."

During his state of the nation address, Putin also "accused Ankara of supporting terrorists but said he considered the Turkish people friendly," TASS reported.

He urged countries against having double standards when it comes to terrorism, and added that Moscow does not equate the Turkish people "and the part of the current ruling elite, which bears direct responsibility for the deaths of our service members in Syria."

"We will not forget this complicity with terrorists. We have always considered betrayal the worst and most shameful thing. Let those in Turkey who shot our pilots in the back, who are hypocritically trying to justify themselves, their actions and cover up the crimes of terrorists know this," he said, according to TASS.

"I do not understand at all why they did it. Any questions, any problems and contradictions that we did not even see should have been resolved in a totally different way. We were ready to cooperate with Turkey on the most sensitive for it issues and were ready to go as far as its allies were unwilling to go. Maybe only Allah knows why they did that. It seems Allah decided to punish the ruling clique in Turkey by taking away their sanity," Putin said, his comments greeted by strong applause.

He also said the Russian army was in Syria to fight for the country's security, and stressed that defeating international terrorism will take the effort of more than one state.