A Russian military transport plane crashed in Syria on Tuesday, killing all 32 people on board, Russian news agencies quoted the Defence Ministry as saying, an incident that sharply raises the death toll from the Kremlin’s Syria operation. Russian state TV cited military officials as saying the aircraft had not been brought down by enemy fire. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin had expressed his condolences to relatives of those killed, and to all Russian service personnel, the RIA news agency reported. According to a Reuters tally based on official announcements before Tuesday’s crash, 44 Russian service personnel have died in Syria since the operation started in September 2015. In addition to those deaths, in December 2016 a plane carrying a Russian military orchestra to Syria crashed in the Black Sea, killing all 92 people on board.

Source: Dhaka Tribune March 06, 2018 14:23 UTC