The Ministry of Defense announced the loss of another helicopter of the Aerospace Forces as part of an operation against militants in Syria. According to the agency, on August 1, a Mi-8 military transport helicopter returning to the Khmeimim airbase after delivering humanitarian aid to Aleppo was fired from the ground in the Syrian province of Idlib. Earlier, the 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 of the Russian Center for the Reconciliation of Warring Parties in Syria. The fate of the Russian servicemen is being ascertained through all available channels," the Defense Ministry said in a statement.

The opposition news agency Shahba Press reported, “ what all crew members were killed. The Kremlin said that there is "no exact 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 steal the car in order to minimize casualties on the ground. The Kremlin expresses deep condolences to all the relatives of our fallen servicemen," the presidential press secretary told reporters.

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

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

— Eliot Higgins (@EliotHiggins) August 1, 2016

MENA journalist Björn Stritzel also tweeted a photo of a missile cluster with the caption: "In Soviet Russia, 57mm rockets are considered humanitarian aid."

In Soviet Russia, 57mm rockets are considered humanitarian aid. pic.twitter.com/wAXQl8TtDR

— Björn Stritzel (@bjoernstritzel) August 1, 2016

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 and assault modification). In particular, on a container placed in the tail section of the helicopter with, presumably, the President-S electronic warfare complex.

Recall that the Center for the Reconciliation of the Warring Parties in Syria was established 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), Jabhat 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, launched a new stage of a 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, agreements on reconciliation have been concluded with representatives of 17 settlements in the provinces of As-Suwayda and Latakia.

According to the center, the cessation of hostilities has been observed in most provinces over the past 24 hours.

Nevertheless, four violations were recorded in the province of Damascus during the day, and two more in Latakia.

“The formations of the Jaish al-Islam group, which considers itself to be an opposition group, fired mortars at the settlements of Jaubar, Arbil, Duma and Harasta in the province of Damascus. In the province of Latakia, the armed formations of the Free Syrian Army shelled the settlements of Tubal and Zuaykat,” the bulletin says.

In Syria, a Russian Mi-8 helicopter was shot down, returning from Aleppo to the Khmeimim air base. The car, on board which were five soldiers, fell in the province of Idlib. Since November 2015, the Russian Aerospace Forces, under various circumstances, have lost four helicopters and a Su-24 front-line bomber in Syria.

Turkish zugzwang

The first loss happened on November 24, 2015. A pair of Su-24M front-line bombers carried out a combat mission in the province of Latakia (area of ​​​​the settlement of Kepir) - they bombed militant positions.

When re-entering the target, the pair was attacked by Turkish F-16 fighters. According to Ankara, Russian aircraft violated Turkish airspace, according to Moscow - all this time they were over Syrian territory. One way or another, but the RF-90932 tail number "83 white" was shot down in pursuit by an air-to-air missile.

The pilots ejected over the area controlled by militants opposed to Damascus. The crew commander, Lieutenant Colonel Oleg Peshkov, was shot by them while still in the air, and the navigator Konstantin Murakhtin managed to land and escape.

A search and rescue team was sent from the Khmeimim base. Her Mi-8AMTSh helicopter was damaged by fire from the ground and made an emergency landing. Marine Alexander Pozynich died on board. The car was subsequently destroyed by militants with an anti-tank missile.

night fall

On the night of April 12, 2016, a Mi-28N attack helicopter, returning from a combat mission, crashed in Homs province. Crew members - Andrey Okladnikov and Viktor Pankov, who served at the air base in Budennovsk before the trip to Syria - died.

According to the Ministry of Defense, the helicopter was not fired from the ground. An industry source suggested that the car crashed due to a collision with the ground while piloting in difficult conditions.

Subsequently, it was reported that the crew, while flying in night vision goggles, could not cope with the control and the car collided with some kind of obstacle. Sources in the investigation commission at the end of April 2016 confirmed this conclusion, citing the human factor as the reason.

“The Mi-28N pilots, while flying at night over an unorientated terrain with difficult terrain, lost their correct spatial position, as a result of which the helicopter collided with the ground,” a source in the commission noted.

The helicopter that wasn't there?

On July 8, 2016, a helicopter was shot down near Palmyra. On board were the commander of the 55th separate regiment of army aviation, Colonel Ryafagat Khabibullin and pilot-operator Lieutenant Evgeny Dolgin, both died.

The official position of the Russian Ministry of Defense today is still that a Syrian Mi-25 helicopter (an export version of the Mi-24D helicopter) with a Russian crew was shot down. According to Znamenka, this happened when the car was turning back after the strike. An anonymous source in the military department, also noting that the car that had used up ammunition lay on the reverse course, connected the death of the helicopter with the use of the American TOW anti-tank complex by militants.

However, the published video does not confirm this version. The footage clearly shows a pair of Mi-35M attack helicopters (such machines are used by the Russian air group in Syria). They were on a combat course, and the wrecked vehicle immediately before the defeat launched unguided rockets.

The tail rotor hit, also recorded on video, does not correspond to the picture of the use of TOW missiles. In particular, this is evidenced by the absence of a trace of an approaching missile, the limited nature of the destruction, as well as the localization of the hit. One of the realistic versions is the use of anti-aircraft artillery by militants.

Coming back from Aleppo

At the end of July, the Russian military announced a large-scale humanitarian operation in the Aleppo region. The successes of the Syrian army and allied forces (including Iranian and Hazara volunteers) led to the encirclement of a large group of militants in the northeastern part of Aleppo. On July 28, it was reported that three corridors were being opened from the city for the exit of civilians and a separate corridor for militants who decided to lay down their arms.

On August 1, 2016, in the Syrian province of Idlib, a Mi-8AMTSh helicopter was shot down, returning to the Khmeimim airbase after delivering humanitarian aid to the city of Aleppo. Judging by the numerous photographs of the wreckage published on the network, we are talking about the RF-95585 vehicle (tail number "212 yellow"), photographed at the location of the 562nd Army Aviation Air Base in Tolmachevo (near Novosibirsk) before the start of the Syrian campaign.