Russian pilot blew himself up to avoid capture in Syria

A RUSSIAN pilot shouted “this is for our guys” before detonating a grenade to evade capture by rebel fighters in Syria, it emerged yesterday.

Major Roman Filipov ejected from his Sukhoi 25SM fighter jet after it was shot down on Saturday while he was flying low over opposition-held Idlib in northwestern Syria.

It was the first Russian jet to be downed since Moscow intervened in the war in support of President Bashar al-assad’s regime in 2015.

After the jet was struck by a shoulder-launched anti-aircraft MANPAD missile, the 33-year-old pilot kept the plane in the air but was forced to eject after one of the engines failed and flight controls became unresponsive.

Militants from the al-qaeda-linked Hayat Tahrir al-sham (HTS) opened fire on him after his parachute opened, but he made it to the ground. According to a video circulating on social media yesterday, Maj Filipov shot two fighters then detonated a grenade to avoid capture. The fighters ducked as he was heard shouting “this is for our guys” before pulling the pin.

Maj Filipov, from the eastern city of Vladivostok, has been posthumously nominated for the Kremlin’s highest honour – the Hero of Russia, according to the daily newspaper Kommersant.

“The pilot died heroically,” Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesman, said. “We are proud of our heroes.”

Russia has since ordered its warplanes in Syria not to fly below 16,000ft, to avoid being shot down by shoulder launched anti-aircraft missiles.

It said that such a policy had previously been in force, but that the SU-25S had for some reason started flying at lower altitudes in recent days.

Russia intensified its raids on Idlib overnight on Sunday and into yesterday morning in retaliation.

Civil defence workers said air raids struck the towns of Kafr Nabl and Maasran, as well as the cities of Saraqeb, Maarat al-nu’man and Idlib itself, and that several deaths and dozens of injuries were reported.

A hospital was hit in Maarat alnu’man and at least five people were feared killed in an attack that damaged a residential building in Kafr Nabl.

Video recorded by rescuers showed hospital workers moving premature babies from destroyed incubators.

A chemical attack was also reported in the northwestern town of Saraqeb, where five people were admitted to hospital after experiencing difficulty breathing. Assad forces are thought to have carried out three chlorine attacks on civilian areas in the past four days.