To recapitulate the last few days, or slightly more...
- On 11 November 2017, Putin announced a 'withdrawal of Russian forces from Syria'.
- Thus, and ever since, the VKS (Russian Air-Space Force) is 'not' flying up to 70 sorties a day in support of the IRGC-run offensive on eastern Idlib.
- This offensive 'did not' force up to 300,000 Syrian civilians to flee in direction of the Turkish border.
- The last few days, few of VKS Su-25s 'did not' become notorious for attacking refugee treks moving in direction from Sarqib towards Turkey, and massacring dozens.
No. These were 'anti-terror operations against IGIL-controlled Sarqib'.
(Of course, there's no 'IGIL' - aka IS, i.e. Daesh - anywhere around 50km from Sarqib: there is a big concentration of them in southern Aleppo, but they are, really, NOT bombed by the Russians.)
- And it so happened, that one of the Russian Su-25 pilots passed over what Sputnik declared a 'de-militarised zone', and didn't know he might be fired upon - and that only seconds after unleashing a load of S-8 unguided rockets from his B-8M pods at another civilian vehicle.
Sounds logical so far: unarmed civilians tend not to shoot back.
Alas... and so 'terribly tragically' (play the national anthem of the Soviet Union in the background while reading the following)... so really in best traditions of 'Russian-tragedy', the Su-25SM Bort 06 (RF-95486), flown by geroic Major Roman Filipov, then got blasted out of the skies by insurgents of Jaysh an-Nasir (FSyA).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEmFbuPJAFk
Now: Filipov dully ejected and did so over the place named Ma'asaran, some 3-4km south of Sarqib. While Sarqib is HTS-controlled, Ma'asaran is held by the Jaysh an-Nasir.
Once on the ground, Filipov came down right next to the wreckage of his aircraft - and a bunch of women and children screaming after being attacked by him, only seconds before (one can hear their screams in the full version of the video posted above). Thus he (now switch the music to Lenin Funeral March, please) - geroically killed himself with a hand-grenade - 'in order to avoid being captured and beheaded', 'of course'.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxfhm1slhM0
The latter variant is not the least nifty. No, no. It so happens the Keystone Cops in Moscow, and thus their clowns at Hmemmem AB, cannot know that Ma'asaran is held by the Jaysh an-Nasir, and not by the HTS. I.e. who is in control of the place their Su-25s are rocketing since days - which in turn indicates they are either:
a) complete, and definitely confirmed idiots, indeed a worst sort of thugs with illusions of grandeur, entirely wrong in place and time, or
b) cynical arseholes who are all the time intentionally targeting everybody else - foremost Civilians, and Syrian insurgents fighting against Assadists and the IRGC - JUST NOT JIHADISTS.
Ah yes, and BTW: guess by what was Filipov shot down?
By a 9K38 Strela, aka SA-18 MANPAD. Exactly the kind of which the Russians provided to the PKK, so this shot down a Turkish AH-1W, last year in May, and which the Syrian insurgents fighting on the TSK's side against the PKK/PYD/YPG-conglomerate in the Efrin canton, reportedly captured a few days ago.
...and of course, in revenge for the downing of their pilot (then, you know: it's very, very, very unfair - indeed: a war crime - to shot down a Russian pilot that's massacring civilians since days, and that - imagine! - at war!), the Russians are bombing every single hospital in that part of the Idlib province...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRHSrvXJLDs
Now isn't this an 'amazing series of coincidences'...
EDIT: ...or not at all. Guess, Putin considers that Su-25 for 'trully withdrawn from Syria'. At least 'one less to fly all the way back'...
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