Russian Helicopter Downed Amid Massive Insurgent Offensive to Break Aleppo Siege.
James Robertson
Russian Helicopter Downed and Massive Insurgent Offensive to Break the Aleppo Siege.
The Russian Military have suffered their worst loss of the 10 month Syrian engagement after an MI8 helicopter crashed in the insurgent held Idlib province yesterday. All five personnel on board are believed dead although in the footage of the aftermath only two bodies can be seen.
These bodies are a considerable distance from the downed helicopter suggesting that the people dead on the ground survived the crash and were able to crawl from the burning helicopter before succumbing to their wounds or being executed by the insurgents who found them.
These lkosses bring the Russian death toll in Syria to at least nineteen. (Source) It is also claimed that a number of Russian private military contractors have also perished in Syria and this may well be true but is very hard to substantiate.
The cause of the crash is not known and it is worth remembering that when two Russians died in an MI35 helicopter crash last month, jihadists were initially blamed for shooting it down but the visual evidence indicated that the helicopter was struck by a missile fired from another helicopter operating in the area.
Therefore, the MI8 cannot be presumed to have been shot down by the insurgents, and generally when the insurgents are going to do something big they always film it so this may have been lucky small arms fire, a missile or an accident due to pilot error or mechanical failure. It is being reported as being the result of ground fire, this may well be correct or merely the most dramatic rendering of the incident.
The helicopter crashed near the town of Saraqib in Idlib province, a stronghold of the Sunni extremist insurgents.where the Syrian government hold only two small Shia majority towns al Fu’ah and Kafriyah, besieged since early 2015. (Source)
Footage posted on Liveleak showed a large group of locals gathered at the site of the crash. One fellow is seen jumping up and down on the corpse of a dead Russian, it is very sad to see that these people have sunk to such a level.
Idlib has a repotation for being something of a backwater by Syrian standards and the insurgency is strongest where people are the least sophisticated with Raqqa and Deir ez Zour other examples of this phenomenon.
The result of the incident will be increased support for the war in Russia, especially because of the desecration the bodies of the dead, the kind of act that causes people to demand more planes drop bigger bombs upon the opposition held areas.
Syria: Footage captures burning wreckage of downed Russian helicopter