MOSCOW — Leaders in both Moscow and Ankara said Wednesday that they wanted to avoid ratcheting up the tensions between their countries after Turkey shot down a Russian warplane along the Syrian border, but the Kremlin was still weighing its options.
Russia revealed that the navigator of the fighter jet was rescued by special forces troops who followed his radio beacon and negotiated his release from the insurgents holding him. Russia will also deploy its most powerful air defense system in Syria, its defense minister announced.
Protesters gathered outside the Turkish Embassy in Moscow on Wednesday, pelting it with eggs and rocks that shattered several windows.
In Washington, a senior U.S. military official who has been briefed on the radar tracking of the Russian warplane said Wednesday that the data showed the aircraft transited Turkish airspace, as Turkey has insisted.
"They crossed into Turkish airspace," the official said of the Russian pilots, speaking on the condition of anonymity as the official was not authorized to discuss confidential military reports.
Such data was not likely to deflate the pronounced anger and outrage on the Russian side. The country's foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, said it had "no intention" of going to war against Turkey but reinforced the sharp criticism of Turkey as a haven for terrorists that Russia started soon after the plane was shot down.
Lavrov repeated that he thought the shooting down of the fighter jet was a premeditated strike and hinted that the United States had a hand in it. "We have enough information to confirm that this was a preplanned act," Lavrov said at a news conference. Turkey was just looking for a "pretext" to shoot down the plane, he said.
The Russian foreign minister would not elaborate as to why Turkey planned such an attack, saying perhaps it was for domestic political reasons, or because larger allies wanted it, or to protect a border haven of its Syrian allies.
Lavrov suggested that the United States might have had a role in the attack, wondering if Washington had signed off on Turkey firing a U.S.-made missile. In addition, the agreement that the United States negotiated with Russia on preventing accidental air force clashes over Syria was meant to cover allies like Turkey, he said, and he accused Ankara of not activating emergency communications.
It was clear that NATO members were critical of Turkey behind closed doors, Lavrov said, yet there was no remorse. He spoke by telephone with his Turkish counterpart, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, for more than an hour, Lavrov said.
Lavrov echoed President Vladimir Putin's statement from a day earlier that the entire gamut of Russian-Turkish relations would be reviewed, but he did not name any specific steps. He repeated the Russian accusation that Turkey allowed terrorists free rein on its soil and said that needed to be addressed.
In Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that he wanted to avoid any escalation with Russia, but he stuck to his position that Turkey was defending its own security.
"We have no intention of escalating this incident," Erdogan said at a business event in Istanbul. "We are only defending our own security and the rights of our brothers."
The Turkish prime minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, maintained that the plane was brought down because it had not responded to warnings, even if it flew over Turkey for 17 seconds, and that Turkey was not aware that it was a Russian warplane when its air force fired.
He called Russia an "important partner" but also called for an end to Russian attacks along the border that are home to the Turkmen, an ethnic group close to the Turks.
The shooting down of the plane was sure to aggravate attempts to forge a united global effort to confront the Islamic State and negotiate a political transition in Syria. Turkey opposes President Bashar Assad of Syria, and the Kremlin intervened militarily there to shore up his rule, hitting insurgents whom Ankara backs.
In Moscow, the defense minister, Sergei K. Shoigu, announced that Russia would deploy its most modern air defense system, the S-400 mobile anti-aircraft missile system, to the Hmeimim airbase outside Latakia where its more than 50 warplanes and other aircraft are deployed.
The sophisticated system, known in the West as the SA-21 Growler, is designed to hit targets at long range, including other aircraft and missiles.
Turkey said the Russian warplane was shot down after it briefly violated Turkish airspace and pilots ignored warnings not to cross the border. The plane crashed about 2 1/2 miles from the border, Russia said, and the pilots parachuted into Syrian territory.
The Russian defense ministry had confirmed earlier that the pilot of the Sukhoi Su-24 fighter-bomber was killed Tuesday by ground fire from insurgents shooting at him as his parachute descended. The navigator has also been reported dead by Syrian sources on the ground, but the Russian government had not confirmed that.
Shoigu told a staff meeting that the Russian navigator was on the Russian base outside Latakia, Syria, after an overnight operation to rescue him that lasted 12 hours.
The pilot and the navigator fell on mountainous territory of northern Latakia province, which is controlled by a local militia called the 10th Brigade. Footage on YouTube showed insurgents on the ground opening fire with various automatic weapons at the floating figures and exulting over what appeared to be the body of one of them.
Five Mi-8 helicopters bearing search-and-rescue teams consisting of Russian special forces troops and their Syrian interpreters were dispatched to find the pilots, following a radio signal that one was emitting, according to Russian news reports.
The Russian special forces found the navigator in the hands of local insurgents around noon Tuesday and spent hours negotiating for his release, the reports said. He was brought back to the Russian base around 3:40 a.m. Wednesday, Shoigu said. The whereabouts of the body of the dead pilot have not been confirmed.
Putin said on national television that the dead pilot, identified as Lt. Col. Oleg A. Peshkov, would be posthumously awarded Russia's highest military honor, the Hero of Russia.
A Russian marine in Syria on contract who was killed when a search-and-rescue helicopter was blown up, Aleksander M. Pozynich, would also be given a medal, as would the rescued navigator, Capt. Konstantin V. Murakhtin, Putin said in brief remarks at an economic conference.