Russian Su-25 show down in Syria
On 3rd of February Russian Su-25 was shot down in Syria by Syrian rebels. Read my article to find out everything we know about this incident so far.
Saraqib city is one of the most important locations in Idlib province. The M5 highway (Aleppo-Hama) passes through the city. Thanks to that Saraqib is the biggest logistic centre in the region and from here supplies reach south Aleppo countryside and Khan Szejkun in southern Hama. For the last few days the city was constantly bombed by Syrian and Russian aircrafts. Probably this is preludium to the expected SAA(Syrian Arab Army, loyal to Assad) offensive aiming at taking control of Saraqib.
NOTE! Following version of events is based on facts. Only some events, that currently aren't known, were added up by author to make it a complete story. Event that are currently known were not changed by author. Enjoy.
Condor's last flight
Late afternoon, 3rd of February, somewhere near Saraqib. A small objects is fastly moving through the skies. On the ground few rebel fighters who heard aircraft noise ran out of a little building which is serving as a local checkpoint. They started to point fingers to the air and shout – some screamed „alawi” and others „russi”. Other, who kept their common sense jumped in their technical made out of Toyota pickup and started firing from ZU 23-2 mounted on Toyota, but their fire turns out to be not effective enough. Meanwhile commander of this checkpoint grabs a radio and passes other outposts following message: „enemy jet is coming your way, low-altitude, prepare yourself”.
Moment when Russian Su-25 was shot down
Soon the information reaches other checkpoints in the area. Their crews immediately start preparing for a warm welcome of the enemy. At one checkpoint two militiamen grab a MANPADS and start to look for incoming enemy aircraft. Then suddenly plane started to emerge from the clouds – inofmration received by radio was true, indeed the plane is flying at low attitude. MANPADS crew waste no time and fire a surface-to-air missile...
A moment later rebels heard a huge explosion and one of aircrafts' ending started to burn. After the blast the plane kept on flying but it could be seen that the pilot had problems with keeping balance. When the blast happened rebels started cheerfully shouting „Allahu Akbar”.
Su-25 crash site
When rebels were cheering on the ground, a drama was taking place in the skies. The airplane was only about 25-30 km from the front line and allied forces. But the pilot knew that he won't make it. He decided to eject.
Place where pilot landed
Pilot's pistol, we can see that he fired some rounds in direction of rebels
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Jets from Belbek airport
Side numbers of downed Su-25
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Pilot's documents found by rebels
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Rebels holding North Korean launcher HT-16PGJ, 2014
Rebels holding Russian-made 9K338 Igla-S, probably back in 2013
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Roman Filipow
A moment later a parachute appeared in the sky and the plane went into a nose-dive. Rebels saw this and followed the dropping parachute. When pilot landed the rebels were only several metres away. He had no chance for an escape. Rebels saw that the pilot has already landed and started to run toward him, just like it was a race. But this athletic competition was interrupted by shoots – it was pilot shooting at the rebels. There was a short exchange of fire and then the explosion happened – the pilot blew himself up with a hand grenade.
The aircraft
The downed jet was Russian Su-25. Probably he operated from Khmeimim airport where most of the Russian expeditionary forces are stationed. In the photos from crash site we can see aircraft's side number – RF-95486. This means that his home airfield was Belbek military airport, near Sevastopol. This airport was captured by Russians in 2014 when they invaded Crimea.
The Pilot
In press statement, spokesmen of Russian MOD, said that pilot of downed Su-25 was Roman Filipow – Ukrainian aviator, who joined Russian Air Forces after annexation of Crimea. But this version was undermined by Russian activists who claimed that this pilot was indeed Roman Filipow, but he was a Russian from Vladivostok, not an Ukrainian.
Ultimately it turned out that the Russian government was lying. Syrian rebels shared photos of documents belonging to the pilot of downed jet. Among this documents there was a discount card from one of Vladivostok's shops.
How Russian jet was downed?
Su-25 was certainly shot down with a MANPDS – Man-portable air-defence system. But there is no information about which particular system was used – in video we can only hear a blast, but we can't see the launcher itself.
Some sources, especially pro-rebels and pro-Turkish, claimed that Su-25 was downed with 9K38 Igła, the same launcher that „Olive Branch” forces captured from Kurds few days later - I wrote about it here. But this scenario is highly doubtful. It would be hard to transport this launcher from Afrin to Saraqib(hundreds of kilometers) in a matter of couple days.
Rebels have a powerful anti-air arsenal. In previous years we could see pictures of rebels holding MANPADS manufactured in North Korea and Soviet Union/Russia. Russian Air Forces are aware of that and this is why normally they fly at high-attitude, out of reach of rebels' launchers – but on 3rd of February Su-25 was flying on low-attitude.
Su-25 is not a first Russian jet which was shot by Syrian rebels. On the 1st of August 2016 Russian Mi-8AMTSz was shot down over Idlib province. Probably it was also shot with help of a MANPADS.
Who shot down Russian Su-25?
First video that showed the moment of downing of Su-25 was published by Jaish al Nasr(Army of Victory), which is a part of FSA(Free Syrian Army). This is why many people though that they downed the Russian jet. But Jaish al Nasr haven't officially claimed that it was its member who shot down Su-25. Meanwhile such a statement was released by HTS(Organization for the Liberation of the Levant) in which they claimed that it was solely a HTS success.
HTS is Syrian branch of al-Qaeda. Although this two organisations broke their political ties lately, they still represent the same ideology. The question is: how such a radical group came into possession of MANPADS?
After the fall of Aleppo in 2016, the tensions between rebel factions started to rise. Every faction was accusing others of a treason. Ultimately it lead to creation of two hostile blocks – one was lead by HTS and the other by Ahrar Al Sham(pro-Turkish faction). FSA – probably best equipped rebel faction at that time – plead allegiance to Ahrar. Antagonisms between rival faction were so big that ultimately in the July of 2017 clashes between HTS and Ahrar erupted. The infighting ended in partial HTS' victory. During this clashes HTS seized many FSA's storehouses. It is said that in this storehouses there was a lot of valuable equipment – including American-made ATGMs(TOW). Later videos of HTS using TOW launchers seems to confirms this claims. It is possible that in this storehouses HTS also found some MANPADS.
Post mortem
On 5th of February, Russian MOD decided to will be awarded posthumously with Hero of Russia order. Simultaneously Russia announced that they will do its best to find out who supplied Syrian rebels with MANPADS, which was used to shoot down Russian Su-25.
There are no "Syrian Rebels", you fool.
There's just Jihadist head-cutters paid by Washington
Read the full article and then comment, "you fool". It is certain that you didn't read it. I said in it that Su-25 was shot down by HTS which is linked to al-Qaeda. But it seems that you're too impatient to read the full story and too rude to have a nice convo with you.