MOSCOW -- Protesters hurled stones, eggs and paint at the Turkish embassy in Moscow on Wednesday, a day after one of the country's F-16 jets shot down a Russian Su-24 warplane that breached Turkish airspace.
A Russian pilot and a rescuer were killed. A second Russian pilot was rescued and safely returned to Russia's airbase in a government-controlled area in Syria early Wednesday.
But the incident has plunged Russian-Turkish relations to new lows, with President Vladimir Putin calling the downing a "stab in the back by accomplices of terrorists."
Russians lashed out online, using the hashtag #УдарВСпину, or "stab in the back" in social media posts that included images of the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, as a blood-thirsty vampire and supporter of the Islamic State.
That anger continued on Wednesday when people in Moscow trashed the Turkish embassy. They carried signs that read: "Turkey, you stabbed us in the back" and "Hands off Syria." Some protesters flew paper airplanes representing the downed jet at the building, while several others tied neckties to the security fences surrounding the embassy with a note saying, "it is time to chew a tie," a reference to when former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili was caught chewing his tie as Russian tanks rolled toward Tbilisi in 2008.
Meanwhile, at the Ulyanovsk office of the Efes Rus brewery, which belongs to the Turkish Anadolu Efes, a group of protesters ripped down the Turkish flag and raised that of Russia's Armed Forces. They spray painted the words "Erdogan is a bastard and a shmuck" on the street before trying to break through the entrance door.
