President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Russia had not received any apology from Turkish leaders over the downing of a warplane, nor any proposals to compensate Moscow.

"We still have not heard any articulate apologies from Turkey's highest political level nor any proposals to compensate for the harm and damage, nor promises to punish criminals responsible for their crimes," Putin said at the Kremlin in televised remarks.

Russian warplanes carried out heavy raids in Syria's northern Latakia province on Wednesday, a day after Turkey downed one of Moscow's jets in the area, a monitoring group said.

Warplanes believed to be Russian also carried out strikes near the Turkish border in northern Aleppo province, killing at least three people and setting alight several trucks carrying aid and goods for sale, the monitor and activists said.

Russian media on Wednesday echoed President Vladimir Putin's tough talk on Turkey's downing of its fighter jet but warned against letting tensions spiral into further conflict.

Front pages were dominated by pictures of the burning Russian jet and Putin's words that its downing was a "stab in the back."

Tensions between Moscow and Kiev ratcheted up further Wednesday as Ukraine decided to stop buying gas from Russia and closed its airspace to its giant eastern neighbor’s airlines.

The two measures not only underscore the acrimonious nature of the former Soviet countries' relations but also highlight how difficult one of Europe's deadliest crises since the Balkans Wars of the 1990s may be to resolve.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sought to play down tensions with Russia Wednesday after Turkey's downing of a Russian warplane on the Syria border sparked fears among NATO allies of a wider conflict.

Moscow said Russian and Syrian special forces had rescued one of the pilots who ejected from the plane after being shot down early Tuesday but confirmed another was dead, in an incident that threatens to damage relations between two rival players in the Syrian conflict.

President Vladimir Putin on Monday lifted a ban on Russian firms from working on Iranian enrichment sites as he traveled to Tehran for his first visit since 2007.

A decree Putin signed on Monday enables Russian firms to work with Iranian companies on the Fordo enrichment site and help Tehran in redesigning its Arak nuclear reactor.

Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived Monday in Tehran for talks with Iran about the devastating conflict in Syria where the two nations are allied in support of the Damascus regime.

On his first trip to Iran in eight years, Putin met supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country's ultimate authority, who has backed Syrian President Bashar Assad since an uprising broke out in 2011.

Syrian government troops are advancing on "nearly every front" thanks to Russian air strikes that began in September, President Bashar Assad said in an interview released Sunday.

The embattled president also said he favored new peace talks to be hosted in Moscow, but stressed that the Syrian conflict could not be resolved without "defeating terrorism."

Russia said Sunday its security forces had killed 14 fighters linked to the Islamic State jihadist group in two special anti-terror operations in the volatile North Caucasus region.

Russia's national anti-terrorism committee said in a statement quoted by TASS news agency that 11 "bandits" were killed in a first raid near the city of Nalchik. Three others died in a second operation in the same area later in the day.

Transportation Minister Ghazi Zoaiter announced Sunday that Russia ended the naval maneuvers that have affected civil aviation in Lebanon, reported the National News Agency.

He said that civil aviation can now go back to normal after the conclusion of the maneuvers that took place in the Mediterranean.