Why did Turkey shoot down a Russian plane?

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Thursday that Turkey would have acted differently if it had known a warplane its forces downed on the Syrian border was Russian.

According to the Russian daily sport newspaper, Kuban, Rostov, Terek, Ufa and Ankar have already said that they won't play in Turkey, and Interfax also said Spartak Moscow will move its training to another country.

Turkey already summoned the Russian envoy in Ankara on Friday over the bombing of Turkmen villages, demanding Moscow end the operation.

"We do not plan to go to war with Turkey, our attitude toward the Turkish people has not changed", he added, but warned Moscow would "seriously reevaluate" relations with Ankara. "Our pilots and armed forces simply did their duty", Erdogan told CNN. On Wednesday, Oleg Safonov said Rostourism recommended Russians not to visit Turkey due to terrorist threat.

Turkey has released audio recordings of what it says are the Turkish military's repeated warnings to the pilot of the Russian plane before it was shot down at the border with Syria _ audio that grows increasingly more agitated.

Two groups that track the war - the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Local Coordination Committees - say the airstrikes hit the highway linking the border town of Azaz with the Bab al-Salameh border crossing with Turkey.

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov shrugged off the Turkish argument that its rules of engagement required it to shoot down the plane, pointing at the 2012 downing of a Turkish warplane by Syria in its airspace.

A USA military spokesman said it has confirmed the pilots were warned, saying the Pentagon "heard everything that was going on".

Turkey's decision to shoot down a Russian bomber involved in an anti-terror mission against the self-proclaimed Islamic State terrorist group means that Ankara has effectively sided with IS.

Hollande was due to discuss Syria and the fight against Islamic State with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Thursday.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova also urged Turkey to speak up about the rebels who killed the pilot. In Moscow several hundred activists hurled stones and eggs at Turkey's embassy and brandished anti-Turkish placards in a brief protest over the jet downing.

The new tensions are sharpening division between Russian Federation and the actions of Western nations and NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) in the Middle East.

One of the Russian pilots was killed by militants in Syria after ejecting from the plane, while his crewmate was rescued by Syrian army commandos.

"I think that if there's a side that needs to apologise, it's not us".

In Tuesday's incident, the intruding Russian aircraft was warned about the violation 10 times within five minutes before it was shot down.