Turkey’s allegations that a Russian warplane violated its airspace are not backed by any factual data and are a premeditated provocation, Russia’s Defence Ministry said on Monday.
“The hysteria launched by the Turkish side that we define as ‘unsubstantiated propaganda’ looks pretty much like a premeditated provocation,” the ministry’s spokesperson, Igor Konashenkov, said in a statement.
Russia’s military is in possession of a video, provided by Syria’s general staff of the armed forces and a Syrian opposition group, which shows “a Turkish artillery battery shelling a Syrian frontier village”, the statement said.
It said Russia’s Defence Ministry was awaiting a prompt explanation from NATO, the Pentagon and the Turkish armed forces on the shelling incident.