In the latest news on the Russia, Turkey crisis, Russian forensics experts announced on Monday that the memory chips in the “black box” from the Su-24 bomber downed on the Syrian border were destroyed or greatly damaged. They went on to note this means that the data from the black box flight recorder cannot be recovered by normal means, but there is a chance that special technical experts can still extract at least some data from the charred memory chips.
Russia had stated that they expected to use the black box data to prove that the Sukhoi bomber ha never entered Turkish airspace, despite Ankara’s claims of definitive proof.
The downing of the Su-24 fighter-bomber last month has led to a major crisis between Russia and Turkey, with Putin imposing a range of economic and political sanctions on the Turks in retaliation for the incident.
The military and technical experts announced their preliminary findings on the matter in Moscow on Monday afternoon, after they had initially opened the black box on Friday, which was witnessed by a number of international aviation disaster experts.
More on Russia, Turkey crisis
The Russian forensic experts noted that 13 of the 16 chips had been destroyed, while x-ray and other tests on the remaining three suggested that extracting information was not possible with normal data recovery methods.
Of note, the Russian bomber was shot down by a pair of Turkish F-16 fighters on November 24th.
Turkey has claimed from the get go that the Syria-based Russian military aircraft ignored multiple warnings to exit Turkish airspace before it was shot out of the sky.
Both of the pilots managed to eject from the crippled aircraft, but one was killed by Islamic militants on the area, while the other was rescued by Russian and Syrian special forces units.
Putin bent on getting revenge on Turkey
The Russia, Turkey crisis is far from over. As highlighted by ValueWalk, Putin is clearly bent on getting revenge on Turkey for shooting down the Su-24. Political analysts point out that the decision to shoot down the Russian aircraft was made at the highest level, and was almost certainly related to Putin’s refusal to stop his intense bombing campaign against the Syrian, in particular the ethnic Turkmens that are supported by Turkey.
Although a direct on attack on Turkey is pretty much out of the question given its membership in NATO, Putin can undermine Turkey’s interests in the area.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said that Russia “has changed neither before nor during or after the incident with the Russian bomber. Our position on all issues has been consistent.”
“They’ll regret it,” Putin promised publicly the day after the jet was shot down. “We know what to do.”
Besides the various economic sanctions already announced by the Kremlin, military analysts point out that Russia has already notably intensified its airstrikes near the Syria – Turkey border striking Turkmen forces fighting the Assad regime.
Intelligence experts also highlight that Russia might have already begun more active support of the Marxist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) (as it did for more than a decade during the Cold War). The PKK is openly fighting the Turkish government in several areas of the country.
