Russia says lost 112 servicemen in Syria in three years

PanARMENIAN.Net - Russia’s losses over the three years of its operation in Syria have amounted to 112 people, a senior Russian lawmaker said on Sunday, September 30, TASS reports.

"As of today, the losses of our armed forces in Syria stand at 112 people, with the crashes of An-26 and Il-20 accounting for about a half of them," Viktor Bondarev, chairman of the defense and security committee of Russia’s Federation Council upper parliament house and former commander of Russia’s aerospace forces, told journalists.

"Material losses include eight planes, seven helicopters and, probably, one or two armored personnel carriers and armored motorcars," he added.

Bondarev recalled that in the first three years of the war in Afghanistan, almost 4,800 Soviet soldiers had been killed, "at least 60 tanks, at least 400 armored vehicles, 15 planes and 97 helicopters" had been lost. "Let us compare with the ‘progressive West’: over the three years of the war in Iraq (2003-2006) the US-led coalition lost 2,515 servicemen, including 2,309 Americans, ten to twenty Abrams ranks, several dozens of armored personnel carriers, at least 50 Bradley fighting vehicles, 15 planes and about 80 helicopters," he noted.

"Russia’s counter-terrorist operation in Syria has demonstrated: we have learnt how to conduct warfare. As the major criterion of military prowess is not the very fact of victory but its price," he stressed.