As if this story needed another twist.

It doesn’t. But, it got one anyway.

According to investigators in Moscow Monday, the Kremlin and its operators were unable to retrieve information from the black box of their warplane that was shockingly shot down by Turkey last month.

Russian officials had hoped that the data the receptacle contained would provide indisputable evidence that Turkey was wrong, and they were right.

Turkey’s story is that they shot down the SU-24 fighter because it violated their airspace. They also say they gave the aviators plenty of warning prior to the firing.

This from Reuters (via CCTV News):

Sergei Bainetov, Russian Air Force’s deputy head of flight safety, was quoted as saying that 13 of the flight recorder’s 16 microchips had been destroyed and that those remaining were damaged.

The damage was so severe, he said, because of the sheer force with which the plane had hit the ground after being struck by an air-to-air missile, severing a cord that connected the black box and the jet’s avionics.

The defense ministry would now turn to specialized scientific institutions in the hope that they could get something from the damaged chips, he said, saying it was an uncertain process that was likely to take “a lot of time.”

To read our previous coverage on the drawn-out debacle (and it’s pretty extensive) click here.

It’s rife with Putin and Putin slandering the Turkish president (and his family), poorly-written international statements, accusations, witness testimony, ISIS, oil and plenty of money and doubt.