An off-duty Turkish police officer who shouted, “Don’t forget Syria and Aleppo!” shot and killed Russia’s ambassador to Turkey on Monday as he delivered a speech in the capital, Ankara. The scene was captured on video and posted on social media.

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in a nationally televised statement, called the assassination a “provocation” meant to hurt Turkey’s ties with Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, vowed that the “bandits” responsible would pay the price.

"A crime has been committed and it was without doubt a provocation aimed at spoiling the normalization of Russo-Turkish relations and spoiling the Syrian peace process,” Putin said in televised comments from Moscow. "There can only be one response — stepping up the fight against terrorism.”

[node:field_slideshow]

The assassination appeared to represent the latest violent spillover of the Syrian conflict into neighboring Turkey, reports Los Angeles Times. Suicide bombings linked to the fighting in Syria have become almost commonplace in Turkey.

Russia and Turkey, which have both intervened militarily in Syria, are on opposite sides of the conflict. Russian firepower has helped Syrian President Bashar Assad cling to power and recapture opposition-held east Aleppo; Turkey has allied itself with some of the rebels seeking to topple him.

As reported in the Los Angeles Times.