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A Russian helicopter was shot down in Syria. The death of a Russian helicopter in Syria: main versions and questions What brought down a helicopter in Syria

The Ministry of Defense reported the loss of another helicopter of the Aerospace Forces as part of an operation against militants in Syria. According to the department, on August 1, a Mi-8 military transport helicopter, returning to the Khmeimim airbase after delivering humanitarian aid in Aleppo, was fired from the ground in the Syrian province of Idlib. Earlier, Al-Jazeera TV channel reported that a helicopter shot down by the opposition fell in the south of Aleppo province.

“On board the helicopter were three crew members and two officers from the Russian Center for Reconciliation of Warring Parties in Syria. The fate of Russian military personnel is being clarified through all available channels,” the Ministry of Defense said in a statement.

The opposition news agency Shahba Press reported, “ what all crew members died. The Kremlin said there is “no precise information yet” on the number of people killed in the incident.

“Those who were in the helicopter, according to information received from the Ministry of Defense, died. They died heroically because they tried to take the car away in order to minimize casualties on the ground. The Kremlin deeply sympathizes with all the loved ones of our fallen servicemen,” the presidential press secretary told reporters.

The General Staff is trying to clarify the whereabouts of Russian military personnel. The head of the Russian Armed Forces, Lieutenant General, said that “according to available information, the helicopter was shot down from the ground over an area under the control of armed formations and units of the so-called “moderate opposition” that joined it.” He qualified the incident as a terrorist act.

“Today a terrorist attack was committed as a result of which a Russian military transport helicopter Mi-8 was shot down, returning after carrying out a humanitarian mission to deliver food and medicine to residents of the city of Aleppo,” the general said.

— Eliot Higgins (@EliotHiggins) August 1, 2016

MENA journalist Björn Stritzel also posted a photo of the missile block on Twitter with the caption: “In Soviet Russia 57 mm rockets are considered humanitarian aid."


Analyst of the International Strategic Institute IISS, editor of The Military Balance, Joseph Dempsey, in his microblog, draws attention to the details of the rotorcraft, calling the model Mi-8 AMTSH (transport-assault modification). In particular, to a container located in the tail section of the helicopter with, presumably, the President-S electronic warfare system.


Let us recall that the Center for the Reconciliation of Warring Parties in Syria was created on February 22, 2016 at the Khmeimim airbase to facilitate the negotiation process on reconciliation between representatives of the Syrian authorities and the opposition, with the exception of the Islamic State (IS) and Jabhat groups banned in Russia and other countries al-Nusra" and other organizations recognized as terrorist by the UN Security Council, as well as to conclude ceasefire agreements and organize the delivery of humanitarian aid.

Last week, Russia, together with the Syrian government, began a new stage of the humanitarian operation in Syria - four humanitarian corridors were opened in the besieged city of Aleppo: three for civilians and one for militants with weapons and equipment. Since then, the number of settlements in the SAR that have joined the truce has reached 327. In the last 24 hours alone, reconciliation agreements have been concluded with representatives of 17 settlements in the provinces of Es-Suwayda and Latakia.

According to the center, the ceasefire regime has been observed in most provinces over the past 24 hours.

However, four violations were recorded in Damascus province per day, and two more in Latakia.

“Formations of the Jaysh al-Islam group, which considers itself to be an opposition group, fired mortars at the settlements of Jawbar, Arbil, Duma and Harasta in Damascus province. In the province of Latakia, the armed formations of the Free Syrian Army shelled the settlements of Thoubal and Zuaikat,” the bulletin says.

A Russian military Mi-8 helicopter was shot down in Syria, the Ministry of Defense said. The fate of the pilots is unknown. The helicopter was returning after delivering humanitarian aid to Aleppo, where Russia launched a humanitarian operation last week

Mi-8 helicopter in Syria, October 2015 (Photo: Dmitry Vinogradov/RIA Novosti)

As stated in a statement by the press service of the Russian Ministry of Defense, a Russian military Mi-8 helicopter was shot down on Monday, August 1, in the Syrian province of Idlib. On board were three crew members and two officers from the Russian Center for Reconciliation. Nothing is known yet about their fate.

The report clarifies that the helicopter crashed “as a result of shelling from the ground” when it was returning to the Khmeimim airbase “after delivering humanitarian aid in the city of Aleppo” (quotes from RIA Novosti). Last week, Russia announced the start of a humanitarian operation in Aleppo, opening three corridors for civilians and another for those leaving the city with weapons.

The fate of Russian military personnel is being clarified through all available channels, the Ministry of Defense emphasizes.

In images posted by users social networks showing the body dead person and Russian documents allegedly taken in the helicopter, writes Reuters.

​Earlier on Monday, Reuters, citing the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, reported that. Human rights activists were unable to clarify the ownership of the aircraft. At the same time, Orient News, which Reuters calls opposition, reported that rebels shot down a Syrian helicopter and that its pilot was captured.

During the Syrian operation, the Russian Aerospace Forces group lost a Su-24 aircraft shot down by a Turkish fighter, a Mi-8 helicopter shot down by a Turkoman group during a rescue operation, and a Mi-28 helicopter that crashed as a result of a crew error. The American intelligence and analytical company Stratfor also published in May photographs of four burnt Mi-24 helicopters, presumably belonging to Russian army. The Russian Ministry of Defense denied this information.

During Russia's military operation in Syria, which began on September 30, 2015, 14 Russian servicemen were killed. The military department reported the last victim on July 22. Then in the province of Aleppo, accompanying a convoy of cars with food for local residents. An improvised explosive device exploded next to the car where he was.

The Russian coordination center for reconciliation of conflicting parties in Syria began work at the Khmeimim airbase in February this year. Its tasks include facilitating the negotiation process on reconciliation between the Syrian authorities and the opposition, with the exception of organizations recognized as terrorist by the UN Security Council.

ALL PHOTOS

On Monday, August 1, a Russian Mi-8 helicopter was shot down in the Syrian province of Idlib. There were five military personnel on board: three crew members and two officers, the press service and information department of the Russian Ministry of Defense told Interfax. They all died. The head of the Main Operations Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, Sergei Rudskoy, said that the crash area is under the control of the terrorist group Jabhat al-Nusra (banned in the Russian Federation).

“On August 1, in the province of Idlib, as a result of shelling from the ground, a Russian military transport helicopter Mi-8, returning to the Khmeimim airbase after delivering humanitarian aid to the city of Aleppo, was shot down,” the Russian Ministry of Defense reported.

“On board the helicopter were three crew members and two officers from the Russian Center for Reconciliation of the Warring Parties in Syria,” the Russian Defense Ministry said.

The Ministry of Defense said they were investigating the fate of the military. Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that everyone in the helicopter died.

“Unfortunately, you already know the tragic news that came from Syria. A helicopter crashed there and was shot down from the ground,” Peskov said. “Everyone who was in the helicopter, as far as we know, died. They died heroically because they tried to take the car away in order to minimize casualties on the ground,” Peskov said.

He added that the Kremlin deeply sympathizes with the loved ones of the fallen servicemen, RBC reports.

Meanwhile, the Shahba Press agency, close to the opposition, reports only four deaths, writes The Wall Street Journal.

Later, the Syria Today Twitter account published a video of the burning wreckage of the helicopter and local residents gathered around it.

August 1, 2016

One of the photographs shows militants dragging a body along the ground - presumably one of the military men in the helicopter; according to the militants, the pilot.

According to information not yet confirmed by the Russian military, the pilot’s name is Oleg Shelamov, judging by his passport data, he is a native of the city of Torzhok, Tver Region.

According to CIT, the place of work of the deceased pilot is Klin, near Moscow.

A Russian Mi-8 helicopter, carrying three crew members and two officers, was shot down in the Syrian province of Idlib, the Russian Ministry of Defense said. According to the military department, the helicopter was shot down when it was returning to the Khmeimim base after delivering humanitarian aid to the city of Aleppo.

“On August 1, in the province of Idlib, as a result of shelling from the ground, a Russian military transport helicopter Mi-8 was shot down returning to the Khmeimim airbase after delivering humanitarian aid to the city of Aleppo,” Interfax quotes a message from the Russian Ministry of Defense. “On board the helicopter there were three crew members and "two officers of the Russian Center for Reconciliation of Warring Parties in Syria. The fate of Russian military personnel is being clarified through all available channels."

A little later, the press secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov said that no one survived the crash. “Those who were in the helicopter, as far as we know from the information received from the Ministry of Defense, died. They died heroically because they tried to take the car away in order to minimize casualties on the ground,” Peskov said. He added that “the Kremlin deeply sympathizes with all the loved ones of our fallen servicemen.”

Photos and videos that presumably show one of those killed in the Mi-8 crash appeared, in particular, on Twitter @todayinsyria (18+).

— Syria Today (@todayinsyria) August 1, 2016
August 1, 15:47 According to , close to the main command of the Aerospace Forces (VKS) of the Russian Federation, the helicopter was relocated to Syria from the military airfield in Klin. To Klin, presumably, one of the dead pilots worked.


Some journalists questioned the humanitarian mission of the helicopter, as one of the videos from the scene showed an empty rocket block remaining after the crash. The Russian Ministry of Defense assures that “humanitarian cargo - 500 food kits - was dropped from an Mi-8 helicopter into areas of the city of Aleppo under the control of armed formations.”
The plane crashed in an area that presumably (18+), belongs to the Jaysh al-Fateh (Army of Conquest) group. It is a coalition of militant factions opposing the Syrian government in the civil war.

August 1, 18:40 The head of the main operational directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, Sergei Rudskoy, said that the helicopter was shot down over an area under the control of the terrorist group Jabhat al-Nusra, banned in the Russian Federation.

“Today a terrorist attack was committed, as a result of which a Russian military transport helicopter Mi-8 was shot down, returning from a humanitarian mission to deliver food and medicine to residents of the city of Aleppo. On board were three crew members and two officers of the Russian Center for the Reconciliation of Warring Parties in Syria," he said.

Also, according to Rudsky, a group of up to 5 thousand militants on Sunday tried to carry out an attack southwest of Aleppo, but was repulsed by the Syrian army with the support of Russian aviation. “The attack was preceded by a suicide bombing of four infantry fighting vehicles filled with explosives at positions of government troops. The offensive was carried out under the leadership of Jabhat al-Nusra,” he said.

“During the fighting, over 800 militants, 14 tanks, ten infantry fighting vehicles, and more than 60 vehicles with installed weapons were destroyed,” Rudskoy said, adding that Russian aviation actively supports the actions of the Syrian army in the Aleppo region to repel militant attacks and carries out selective strikes. At the same time, Rudskoy emphasized, Russian aviation, unlike the coalition led by the United States, does not strike targets located within the city.

TASS


August 1, 20:59 Gazeta.ru, citing a source in the Ministry of Defense, named the names of the three dead crew members (the names of the other two dead military personnel are still unknown):
The commander of the Mi-8 military transport helicopter shot down in Syria was 33-year-old captain Roman Pavlov, he is survived by his wife and daughter, a source in the military department told Gazeta.Ru.

Pavlov and pilot-navigator 29-year-old senior lieutenant Oleg Shelamov, whose documents were posted in social network A number of Twitter users were graduates of the Syzran Higher Military Aviation School of Pilots.

The crew's flight engineer was 41-year-old captain Alexey Shorokhov. He left behind a wife and two children - a son and a daughter.


According to 63.ru, on board the aircraft were graduates of the Syzran Higher Military Aviation School of Pilots (SVVAUL).


Condolences in connection with the attack on the Russian plane were expressed, in particular, in Washington. Meanwhile, the UN said it was monitoring “the escalation of the situation in and around the city of Aleppo,” calling for “the earliest possible restoration and strengthening of the ceasefire.”

August 4, 03:40 A Syrian organization calling itself the "General Foundation for Prisoners" Affairs, which had not previously appeared in the information field, stated that the bodies of the dead Russians were in its possession. The group also demanded the release of prisoners from Syrian prisons. About this RBC reports with reference to Reuters:

According to the agency, the group said it was holding the bodies of five Russians. The group is willing to hand over the bodies if prisoners held in Damascus-controlled prisons and also held by Hezbollah in Lebanon are released. The statement did not specify the names of the prisoners or their number.

The group also demanded an end to the siege of areas that are blockaded by the Syrian army and its allies. Representatives of the General Fund for Prisoners' Affairs insist on delivering a significant amount of humanitarian aid to people living in these territories.

As noted by Reuters, the statement shows documents that presumably belong to those killed in the Mi-8 crash.


August 4, 11:51 Several bodies of dead Russians are in the possession of the militants Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (the new name of Jabhat al-Nusra, the group is banned in Russia), a source close to the command of the Aleppo militia told RIA Novosti. “We don’t know for sure yet whether the terrorists have two or three bodies,” he said.

This is the second helicopter carrying Russians shot down in Syria in the last 30 days. July 9, terrorists of the Islamic State banned in the Russian Federation. Two Russian pilot instructors Ryafagat Khabibulin and Evgeniy Dolgin, who were on board, died.

We have created a chat in Telegram for the rapid exchange of news. If you witnessed any event or simply discovered important news, send it here as soon as possible:

Since September 30 last year, when Russian Aerospace Forces aircraft began carrying out airstrikes on large militant control centers, accumulations of equipment, ammunition depots, and infrastructure facilities for the oil business of the Islamic State terrorist organization banned in Russia, many of these facilities have been destroyed.

“That is why most of the fighters and bombers of the Russian Aerospace Forces returned to their places of permanent deployment on Russian territory,” our interlocutor said. — But helicopters in Syria will not be without work for a long time.

It is helicopters that today bear the main burden of providing fire support to the Syrian government army during local clashes. It is helicopters that “hunt” individual mobile groups of militants.

During the “free hunt”, on July 8, a flight of five helicopters flew from the Khmeimim airbase in the direction of Homs province and a Mi-35M helicopter, controlled by a crew consisting of Colonel Khabibullin and Lieutenant Dolgin, was shot down.

Al Jazeera TV channel reported on the disaster on July 8. But representatives of the Khmeimim airbase denied the information, saying that all Combat vehicles returned to the base point, no losses. A day later, the military department was forced to admit the death of Colonel Ryafagat Khabibullin and Lieutenant Evgeniy Dolgin, but continued to insist that it was a Syrian Mi-25 helicopter, flown by Russian pilot instructors.

On Sunday, a video of the helicopter crash appeared on the Internet. Experts identified that the militants shot down a new Russian Mi-35M helicopter. The version that the helicopter was shot down by an American anti-tank gun raises doubts. missile system BGM-71 TOW. The fact is that a more powerful flash is visually visible from the charge of the ATGM warhead, which weighs about six kilograms. The recording, apparently, recorded the destruction of the tail section of the helicopter by a portable anti-aircraft missile system(MANPADS).

The same video explains why the infrared traps did not work: the Mi-35M was shot down at the moment of the attack. And as the military pilots explained to me, the shooting of infrared traps occurs after the attack, during a combat turn to return to their home base. And at this time the helicopter is practically defenseless against ground systems firing.

Ryafagat Khabibullin

The death of Colonel Khabibullin came as a shock to all Russian military pilots. The fact is that 51-year-old Ryafagat Khabibullin was a legendary officer, one of the most media-famous active pilots. The military unit stationed in the village of Korenovsk in the Krasnodar Territory, which he commanded, was visited by both President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. There are dozens of video reports on the Internet in which unit commander Ryafagat Khabibullin talks about the service and the combat training of young pilots.

Military pilots who knew the officer told me that back in 1995, Ryafagat Khabibullin was nominated for the title of Hero of Russia. But they limited themselves to the Order of Courage.

On April 30, 1995, in the Nozhai-Yurt region of Chechnya, a Mi-24, which was piloted by the crew of Captain Khabibullin, was fired upon from the ground and knocked out. Two crew members were killed, Ryafagat was seriously injured, but he made it to the territory of Dagestan and was able to land... As soon as the downed helicopter touched the ground, the officer lost consciousness from loss of blood... The officer was awarded the Order in the hospital, where he remained for almost a year. They wanted to commission him, but he won the right to fly and continued to serve in the 55th helicopter regiment, stationed in Korenovsk, where he rose to the position of unit commander.

Information about 24-year-old Lieutenant Evgeniy Dolgin is much more scarce. It is known that he, like his commander, graduated from Syzran military school. Evgeniy’s father, Viktor Dolgin, is also a military pilot who passed Chechen campaign. Evgeny Dolgin arrived in Syria only in June.

On December 1, 2015, the 393rd Sevastopol Army Aviation Base, commanded by Colonel Khabibulin since 2010, returned to its previous name - the 55th separate army aviation regiment of the 4th Army of the Aerospace Forces and Air Defense. Even then, it became clear to the unit’s officers that this renaming was connected with the transfer to Syria. And in fact, they couldn’t transfer the Krasnodar airbase to the Khmeimim airbase.

On July 8, Colonel Khabibullin personally led a flight of five helicopters on a “free hunt” for Islamic terrorists. And did not return from a combat mission

Helicopters and pilots were transferred from Korenovsk to Khmeimim in March 2016. Colonel Ryafagat Khabibullin also went to Syria with his subordinates. And as our sources in Syria say, the officer flew combat missions almost every day.

“There is nothing extraordinary in the fact that the regiment commander personally flew out on a combat mission,” a representative of the Ministry of Defense told Novaya.

Take, for example, the demining of Palmyra by a detachment of specialists from the International Mine Action Center of the Russian Armed Forces, transferred to Syria from Nakhabino, near Moscow.

— The operation was personally led by the chief engineering troops“Lieutenant General Yuri Stavitsky of the Russian Armed Forces,” our interlocutor at the Ministry of Defense told Novaya.


Mi-35 helicopter of the Russian Aerospace Forces in Syria. Photo: RIA Novosti

On July 8, Colonel Khabibullin personally led a flight of five helicopters on a “free hunt” for Islamic terrorists. And he did not return from the combat mission.

On Tuesday, the coffin with the body of Ryafagat Khabibullin was delivered to the Krasnodar Territory, to Korenovsk, where his fellow soldiers said goodbye to the officer.

The officer will be buried in his native village of Vyazovy Gai, where the officer’s mother lives.

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