DAMASCUS (AFP) – Russia says a member of the country's Naval Infantry was killed after his Mi-8 helicopter made an emergency landing shortly after coming under terrorist fire in northwestern Syria.
A Tuesday statement by Chief of the Main Operational Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Lieutenant General Sergei Rudskoy said that two Mi-8 helicopters had been deployed to the region to conduct a search-and-rescue operation to retrieve the two pilots aboard a Russian warplane that had been shot down by Turkish fighter jets earlier in the day.
In the course of the rescue operation, one of the choppers, "damaged by small-arms fire”, made an emergency landing "on neutral territory”, he said.