Media claims concerning Russia’s involvement in the downing of a Turkish combat jet by Syrian air defense in June are utter nonsense, the Foreign Ministry said on Monday.
Saudi-owned Al Arabiya news channel has claimed it obtained top-secret documents allegedly implicating the Russian military in helping the Syrian air defense to shoot down a Turkish Air Force RF-4E reconnaissance aircraft over the Mediterranean Sea.
Al Arabiya claimed that the classified documents had been obtained thanks to members of the Syrian opposition and verified and authenticated by the channel’s experts. The Russian foreign ministry stressed that deliberately spreading lies has become common practice among some Arab media outlets covering the Syrian conflict.
“Without in any way attempting to influence the editorial policy of these media outlets, we would like to recommend that the authors of anti-Russian fabrications and those who commissioned them spend more time considering, if not issues of morality, then at least their professional credibility,” the ministry concluded.
A Turkish Air Force reconnaissance aircraft RF-4E took off from the Erkhach Air Base in Turkey’s southeastern Malatya Province on June 22, and disappeared from radar screens half an hour later, while in Mediterranean Sea airspace on the western border of Syria and Turkey’s Hatay province.
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