Putin spoke after Turkey said its military shot down a Russian warplane that violated its airspace near the border with northwestern Syria, roiling global markets and marking the first direct clash between foreign powers embroiled in the civil war. Russia’s Defense Ministry denied the plane had crossed the border. Russia began its bombing campaign in Syria Sept. 30 against Islamic State and other groups battling President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

Turkey’s action is the first time in decades that a North Atlantic Treaty Organization member has downed a Russian military aircraft. Ambassadors of the 28 NATO member states are meeting at 5 p.m. Tuesday in Brussels at Turkey’s request to discuss the incident, the military alliance said in a statement.

Russia always viewed Turkey as a friendly state, though “instead of immediately making the necessary contact with us, the Turkish side turned to their partners in NATO for talks on this incident,” Putin said. “It’s as if we shot down the Turkish plane and not they ours. Do they want to put NATO at the service of Islamic State?”

The downed jet had been conducting “preventative strikes against terrorists,” including those from Russia who “could at any time return” to the country, Putin said.

Putin also accused Turkey of helping to fund Islamic State. Russia has long established that large quantities of oil are entering Turkey from Islamic State-controlled areas, providing a huge flow of money to terrorists, he said.

“And now we’re being stabbed in the back, our planes that are fighting terrorists are being hit,” he said. This has happened even though an agreement is in place with the U.S.-led coalition, which includes Turkey, to prevent incidences during air operations in Syria, Putin said.

David Fuller's view

Putin is not treating this as an act of war, fortunately, at least not yet because he is hoping that US and European sanctions against Russia will be lifted following his support in the in the war against Daesh (ISIL). 

Of course Putin has other objectives in the region, not least his opposition to any forces which are a threat to the infamous Bashar al-Assad.  This includes ethnic Turkmen living in Syria who are part of the Free Syrian Army trying too topple Assad.  Russia has bombed Turkmen positions since returning to the Middle East with a large military presence, and this was undoubtedly a factor in Turkey’s shooting down the Russian warplane today.  Moreover, Turkey claims that the Russian jet flew over its narrow peninsula of land on the Syrian border. 

A point emphasised in the middle of my Monday Audio was that industrial commodities were extremely oversold, against a background of institutional short positions, and widespread forecasts of even lower prices.  I pointed out that an eventual production cutback by Saudi Arabia and other OPEC countries could produce a sharp rally in crude oil, which could easily affect sentiment in other depressed commodities. 

Obviously, I did not know that a Russian fighter plane would be shot down by Turkey today.  Nevertheless, today’s rallies in crude oil (Brent & WTI) and Bloomberg’s Industrial Metals Index (weekly & daily) show how oversold these commodities are.  Note the daily industrial metal prices chart with its exhaustion gap on Monday and upward dynamic today.  Among individual metals, note copper’s upward dynamic today from a deeply oversold position and test of the psychological 200¢ level. 

(See also: Who Are the Turkmen Fighters in Control of Russia Jet Crash Site?)