Ambassador Andrei Karlov, 62, was gunned down yesterday at the opening of a Russian photography exhibition in Ankara by a Turkish policeman crying "Aleppo" and "Allahu Akbar" (God is greatest), in what Moscow called a "terrorist act".
"The murderer was afraid to look him in the eye," ran the banner frontpage headline on pro-Kremlin paper Izvestiya above a dramatic picture of Karlov with his killer looming behind.
"They did not shoot at Karlov. They shot at Russia," Senator Konstantin Kosachev said in comments published alongside.
Putin also said that the killing in Ankara was designed to undermine efforts to find a settlement on the conflict in Syria that are currently being spearheaded by Russia and Turkey.
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Moscow and Ankara are on different sides of the conflict in Syria but the two countries have worked closely together to evacuate citizens from the battered city of Aleppo.
"I don't think that Moscow will provoke conflict" over the incident, Leonid Isayev of Moscow's Higher School of Economics told RBK business daily.
"Today dialogue between Russia and Turkey is developing quite actively."
In an interview with Izvestiya, the head of Russia's parliamentary committee on foreign affairs, Leonid Slutsky, warned those who try to drive a wedge between Russia and Turkey would fail.
"The main thing is that there will not be a new round of tensions between Russia and Turkey, no matter how much our opponents want this," he said.
Other outlets were, however, harsher toward Ankara -- which state television had portrayed as Russia's top foe in the wake of the jet's downing -- pointing out that Turkish authorities had been unable to protect the Russian envoy.
"Responsibility for the death of a foreign ambassador on its territory always lies with the host country," Moskovsky Komsomolets tabloid wrote, adding that the murder was "yet another powerful blow" to the reputation of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.