While speaking at an art exhibition in Ankara, Russian ambassador to Turkey Andrey Karlov was shot by a lone gunman during a speech. A Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman confirmed that Karlov had died:
“Today in Ankara as a result of an attack, the ambassador of the Russian Federation to Turkey, Andrey Gennadyevich Karlov, received a wound from which he died,” she said. “We regard this as a terrorist act.”
Karlov, 62, was speaking at the opening of a photographic exhibition at the Contemporary Arts Center in Ankara. Three other people were wounded in the attack, and Turkish special forces were the first to respond. The video of the assassination, which is graphic, shows Karlov at a podium, grimacing as he’s shot from behind. The camera then pans out to show the assassin, a young man in a black suit, as he holds the gun out and paces back and forth while Karlov lies motionless on the ground. That video—which, again, is quite graphic—can be seen here.
At the moment, the identity and the motive of the assassin is not known, though Turkish media is reporting that he has been “neutralized.”
Tensions between the two nations were already high, as Turkey is a vocal opponent of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, while Russia has given Assad military support to help defeat the rebels in his country—a subject of protests in Turkey. Officials from both countries, along with Iran, are scheduled to talk about the future of Syria tomorrow in Moscow, and initial reports are that those talks will continue as planned.
Karlov had been ambassador since 2013, after a diplomatic career that began in 1976.
Update: A translation of the gunman’s words in the moments following Karlov’s death has begun circulating. You can read it below.
.@lrozen: Full translation of 44-second video of Turkish gunman who killed Russian ambassador. https://t.co/7f7ZGTjZZSpic.twitter.com/y0lWyllB2i
— Bar?n Kayao?lu (@barinkayaoglu) December 19, 2016