Russia loses colonel in Syria fighting

A Russian military officer in Aleppo has died of wounds sustained in a mortar attack carried out by the Syrian opposition to President Bashar Al-Assad and his regime, the Kremlin confirmed today. This now makes the third Russian fatality in Syria this week alone.

Russian news agencies had previously cited the defence ministry as saying that Colonel Ruslan Galitsky had died after being wounded in opposition shelling of military positions in western Aleppo.

Local media in eastern Russia said Galitsky had served as the commander of a tank brigade in Ulan Ude before going to Syria.

They said he had been injured in Aleppo on Monday in opposition shelling of a Russian military field hospital. The defence ministry has previously said that two female Russian medics died in and after the same attack.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed that Galitsky would be posthumously given a top military award.

Russian military personnel are frequently targeted by the Syrian opposition, including the Free Syrian Army (FSA).

In February, the FSA launched a guided missile attack on a gathering of Russian soldiers at a Syrian army base in Latakia province, killing at least four Russian officers and several other lower-ranking troops.

Like the US in Iraq, Russia has also been accused of employing Russian nationals as “contractors”, trained soldiers who work on a freelance, mercenary basis. Their deaths are not recorded as part of any official death toll, which allows the Kremlin to deflate actual casualty figures.