Another Incursion in Turkish Airspace: What is Russia's Strategy? By Jason Thomson, Christian Science Monitor
A Russian warplane - an SU-34 – violated Turkish airspace Friday for the second time in recent months, Turkey’s foreign ministry claims.
The previous incident, in November, ended with the Turkish air force shooting down a Russian SU-24, an all-weather attack aircraft, and resulted in a rapid deterioration of relations between the two countries.
Moscow denied the incursion, calling it "baseless propaganda."
So why is Russia apparently provoking Turkey once more? What strategy is it pursuing?
“Russia is probably showing the Turks that they haven’t been deterred by what happened before,” says Jeffrey Mankoff, senior fellow with the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, in a telephone interview with The Christian Science Monitor.
“Russia believes Turkey would be taking a huge risk in shooting down another plane, and that NATO allies will place a lot of pressure on Turkey not to react.”…