Russia expects high level apology from Turkey, mulls economic sanctions.

Russia expects high level apology from Turkey, mulls economic sanctions. (IX).

Russia is expecting from Turkey a high level apology and compensation for the damage caused by Tuesday's downing of a Su-24 aircraft, and is considering retaliatory economic sanctions, the country's leaders said Thursday.

"We have not yet received any clear apology from Turkey's high political level, nor any proposal to compensate the harm and damage or promises to punish perpetrators of the crime," Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a ceremony of the presentation of credentials by new foreign ambassadors.

Putin slammed the Turkish leadership for deliberately steering the Russia-Turkey ties into the dead end, which he said was "regrettable."

He said that Moscow considered the downing a "treacherous stab in the back", saying the act contradicted common sense and violated international law.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev called the downing of the Russian warplane an "act of aggression," and instructed the government to prepare possible economic sanctions against Turkey within two days.

"Government departments have been asked to formulate a series of measures to respond to this act of aggression," Medvedev told a government meeting Thursday.

Restrictions should be imposed and remain in place until there is an improvement in the bilateral relations, Medvedev added.

The rescued pilot of the Su-24, Konstantin Murakhtin, told reporters later in the day that no visual or video warning was received from the Turkish side, ruling out possibility of violating Turkish airspace.

"If they wanted to warn us, they could have shown themselves, taken a parallel course, but there was nothing. And the rocket struck us in the tail suddenly. We didn't even visually observe it to be able to make an anti-missile maneuver," Tass news agency quoted Murakhtin as saying. 

 Murakhtin assured "there wasn't even a risk of (the Russian warplane) entering Turkey" as the plane was under control of the crew at the time. Read the full story here and here.