MOSCOW (Sputnik) – “Our plane was completing a strike task in northern Syria. There was heavy cloud cover. When our fighter started flying along the border with Turkey, the system showd that some sort of anti-missile defense systems were attempting to lock onto the warplane, so the pilot was forced to make an anti-missile maneuver in just seconds, and entered Turkish airspace a bit, which we honestly admitted to,” Bondarev told Russia’s Komsomolskaya Pravda daily in an interview.
Following the incident, the Russian Defense Ministry said it had taken all necessary measures to prevent any further violation of Turkish airspace.
On October 5, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu stated the incident involving the Russian jet had not affected relations between the countries. According to him, Moscow assured Ankara that such an incident would not occur in the future.
Russian warplanes have been flying and conducting precision airstrikes against Islamic State terrorist group positions in Syria at the request of President Bashar Assad since September 30.
