Russian helicopter shot down
A Russian daily said Moscow might launch massive airstrikes on the terrorists in areas controlled by Fatah al-Sham Front (the newly formed al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorist group previously known as al-Nusra Front) if the militants don't give back the bodies of the slain helicopter crew that was shot down on Monday.

According to Moskovskij Komsomolets newspaper, Russia is to warn the terrorists to return the bodies of the crew killed in the Monday helicopter downing in Idlib or wait for massive airstrikes on their positions.

The daily added that the operations to transfer the bodies of the Russian pilots to Hmeimim air base in Lattakia will be complicated and the Russian forces should launch intensive attacks against the terrorist-held regions to make them withdraw and then advance in that area to return the corpses.

A Russian Mi-8 helicopter was shot down in Idlib by ground fire following the delivery of humanitarian supplies to Aleppo, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Monday. Three crew and two officers from Russia's Reconciliation Center died, according to a Kremlin statement.

The Russian military transport Mi-8 helicopter was shot down in Syria on Monday over an area controlled by Al-Nusra Front, Russia's General Staff said.

"The helicopter was hit from the ground in an area under control of the armed units of Al-Nusra Front terrorist group and the troops of the so-called 'moderate opposition' who joined them," General Sergey Rudskoy, chief of the main operations department of the Russian General Staff, said.

It is the third Russian helicopter lost in action in Syria this year. In July, an Mi-25 attack chopper was shot down near Palmyra, killing two Russian pilots. The aircraft had been engaging the advancing Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) militants at the Syrian Army's request when it was taken down, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.

In April, an Mi-28N attack helicopter crashed while performing a flight near the city of Homs, with the Defense Ministry stressing it was not shot down. The crash left both pilots dead, with technical failure cited by Moscow as the likely cause of the accident.

Last October, another Mi-8 helicopter was badly damaged and then destroyed by IS fighters after an emergency landing in the middle of search and rescue operation to extract a surviving co-pilot of a Su-24M bomber jet shot which was down by a Turkish Air Force F-16.

The number of Russian servicemen who lost their lives since the start of the country's anti-terror operation in Syria on September 30 last year stands at 19 people after the downing of the helicopter.