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The New York Times is reporting:
Russia's ambassador to Turkey was assassinated at an Ankara art exhibit on Monday evening by a lone Turkish gunman shouting "God is great!" and "don't forget Aleppo, don't forget Syria!" in what Russia called a terrorist attack.
The gunman, who was described by Ankara's mayor as a policeman, also wounded at least three others in the assault, which was captured on Turkish video. Turkish officials said he was killed by other officers in a shootout.
"The attack comes at a bad time: Moscow and Ankara have only recently restored diplomatic ties after Turkey downed a Russian aircraft in November 2015," the Stratfor think-tank said.
"Though the attack will strain relations between the two countries, it is not likely to rupture them altogether."
[...] Tensions have escalated in recent weeks as Russian-backed Syrian forces have fought for control of the eastern part of Aleppo, triggering a stream of refugees.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @01:49AM
> I really doubt the Russians are going to buy it.
They don't have to. They know it was in response to their bombing of Aleppo. They aren't going to blame Erdogan because blowback from that was inevitable. Putin is a callous, paranoid asshole, but he understands simple cause and effect like that. So the question is what does have to lose by going along with Erdogan spinning it as a gulenist plot and the answer is nothing. But if he does indulge Erdogan now he's got a buddy who owes him. A buddy with a country in a very strategic location, right on the black sea.
This assassination will be the best thing to happen to Erdogan in recent times and its going to be pretty damn good for Russia too. If Putin's really lucky it will help Turkey to leave NATO. Which, given the illiberal direction Edrogan has been taking the country was going to be a problem for NATO anyway. He's already recalled half of the officers assigned to NATO [wsj.com] under the pretense of them being gulenists.