Four Russian soldiers killed in Syria — defence ministry
MOSCOW, Russia (AFP) — Four Russian soldiers have been killed by militants in Syria’s eastern Deir Ezzor province, the defence ministry said yesterday.
“Four Russian servicemen were killed by militant fire in the Syrian Arab Republic,” a ministry statement said, indicating that another three soldiers were wounded in the incident which took place when “several mobile terrorist groups attacked Syrian Government artillery at night”.
Two of them, who were serving as “military advisors” to the Syrian army, were killed on the spot, while two more died shortly afterwards while being treated at a Russian military hospital, the statement said.
Some 43 militants were killed in the resulting clashes which lasted for around an hour, the ministry said, without saying where the incident took place.
The statement did not say exactly when or where the fighting occurred, although several other reports suggested it may have taken place on May 23, with a monitor saying the Russian toll was believed to be twice as high.
Figures released yesterday by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said nine Russian soldiers had been killed on Wednesday. Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP “several groups” of militants had attacked pro-government forces near Mayadeen town and that some Russian nationals were with them at the time.
A local Russian newspaper in the Siberian city of Chita also reported on the funerals of four soldiers it said were killed in Syria on May 23.
The Russian statement raised the official count of soldiers killed in Syria to 92.
The biggest number of casualties was in March when a transport plane crashed at Hmeimim airbase, killing all 39 people on board.
Russia entered the Syria conflict in September 2015, offering support to Damascus which changed the course of the war, allowing government troops to retake more than half the country from rebels and IS militants.
More than 350,000 people have been killed and millions displaced since the civil war began in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests.
