Why Turkey would shoot down the plane — and why this might surprise Russia

When Russian planes crossed into NATO airspace in the Baltics, as they did in several incidents last year and this year, NATO jets responded by scrambling to intercept the flights — and in one incident even came within mere yards of a collision — but never fired on them.

Russian officials can tend to see all of NATO as a unified block, and they may have concluded from these Baltic flights that Turkey wouldn't fire on them, either.