Five killed as Russian military chopper shot down in Syria

A Russian military helicopter was on Monday shot down over the Syrian province of Idlib with all five people on board believed to have been killed, the Kremlin said.

A Russian military helicopter was on Monday shot down over the Syrian province of Idlib with all five people on board believed to have been killed, the Kremlin said.

In this in this 2002 file photo, a Mi-8 helicopter flies over the Chechen regional capital Grozny, Russia. A helicopter similar to the one pictured has been shot down in Syria and Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman says all people aboard it have been killed.(AP file)

“As far as we know from the information we’ve had from the defence ministry, those in the helicopter died, they died heroically, because they were trying to move the aircraft away to minimise victims on the ground,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists.

The defence ministry had earlier said there were five people on board.

“A Russian Mi-8 military transport helicopter was shot down from the ground after delivering humanitarian aid to Aleppo,” the defence ministry said in a statement quoted by Russian news agencies.

“Three crew members and two officers... were on board,” it said.