An air force helicopter crashed in a mountainous area of southern Chechnya Saturday, killing eight people. The cause of the crash was unknown, but Russian military officials said it was unlikely it had been shot down by Chechen rebels.
Officials initially said there were four people aboard the Mi-8 helicopter, but an air force official who declined to give his name -- in line with Russian practice -- said there were nine aboard and that eight were killed. Russian news agencies quoted air force spokesman Colonel Alexander Drobyshevsky as saying the same.
Surviving passenger
The crash killed three crew members and five border guards who were passengers, Drobyshevsky said, according to the reports.
He told NTV television that the surviving passenger -- who NTV reported had accompanied a fuel shipment to a border post in southern Chechnya -- was flown to the main Russian military base in Chechnya and hospitalized with burns and head injuries.
The helicopter crashed in the Itum-Kale district while preparing to stop on the way back to the Russian base at Khankala near the capital, Grozny, after picking up the border guards at the Tuzkhoroi settlement, Russian news agencies quoted Drobyshevsky as saying. Tuzkhoroi is the site of a border post near the Georgian frontier.
The ITAR-Tass news agency quoted Drobyshevsky as saying the pilots of two Mi-24 helicopters escorting the Mi-8 saw it slam into a mountain and suggesting that the crash was an accident -- not the result of rebel fire.
Chechnya's southern mountains are a rebel stronghold, and militants have shot down several Russian helicopters over the region during the two wars there in the past decade, sometimes using shoulder-held missile launchers. Others have crashed because of technical problems or pilot error.
Interfax quoted unnamed military officials at Khankala as saying that the surviving passenger, who was in serious condition, said the helicopter did not come under attack, and that the crash was probably caused by pilot error or a technical problem.
However, it also quoted unnamed officials in the military prosecutor's office for the region including Chechnya as saying investigators believe the most likely causes were an attack or a technical problem.
War is over
A downing by rebels would be embarrassing for President Vladimir Putin and other top Russian officials, who say the war in Chechnya is over.
In Russia's worst military aviation catastrophe, an overcrowded Mi-26 heavy transport helicopter was shot down by a shoulder-fired missile as it prepared to land at Khankala in August 2002, killing 127 people.
A rebel Web site claimed militants downed an Mi-8 that crashed after hitting a power line this March, killing 15 people, but officials denied it.
Following a withdrawal after a 1994-1996 war that left Chechnya with de facto independence, Russian forces rolled back into the region in 1999.
More than five years later, large-scale battles are rare, but deadly violence occurs daily and Chechnya is plagued by abductions blamed on Russian troops, rebels and Kremlin-backed Chechen security forces.
Four people were abducted Friday in Grozny by armed, camouflage-clad men in two separate incidents police believe may have been the work of a single group, Russian news agencies reported.
Also Saturday, Russian news agencies reported that two suspected militants accused of taking part in a June 2004 raid in Ingushetia, adjacent to Chechnya, have been detained; one in Siberia and one in North Ossetia, which borders Ingushetia. Chechen rebel warlord Shamil Basayev claimed responsibility for the raid, which targeted law enforcement authorities and left some 90 people dead.
‘EYE FOR AN EYE’: Two of the men were shot by a male relative of the victims, whose families turned down the opportunity to offer them amnesty, the Supreme Court said Four men were yesterday publicly executed in Afghanistan, the Supreme Court said, the highest number of executions to be carried out in one day since the Taliban’s return to power. The executions in three separate provinces brought to 10 the number of men publicly put to death since 2021, according to an Agence France-Presse tally. Public executions were common during the Taliban’s first rule from 1996 to 2001, with most of them carried out publicly in sports stadiums. Two men were shot around six or seven times by a male relative of the victims in front of spectators in Qala-i-Naw, the center
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is leaning into his banking background as his country fights a trade war with the US, but his financial ties have also made him a target for conspiracy theories. Incorporating tropes familiar to followers of the far-right QAnon movement, conspiratorial social media posts about the Liberal leader have surged ahead of the country’s April 28 election. Posts range from false claims he recited a “satanic chant” at a campaign event to artificial intelligence (AI)-generated images of him in a pool with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. “He’s the ideal person to be targeted here, for sure, due to
DISPUTE: Beijing seeks global support against Trump’s tariffs, but many governments remain hesitant to align, including India, ASEAN countries and Australia China is reaching out to other nations as the US layers on more tariffs, in what appears to be an attempt by Beijing to form a united front to compel Washington to retreat. Days into the effort, it is meeting only partial success from countries unwilling to ally with the main target of US President Donald Trump’s trade war. Facing the cratering of global markets, Trump on Wednesday backed off his tariffs on most nations for 90 days, saying countries were lining up to negotiate more favorable conditions. China has refused to seek talks, saying the US was insincere and that it
Incumbent Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa on Sunday claimed a runaway victory in the nation’s presidential election, after voters endorsed the young leader’s “iron fist” approach to rampant cartel violence. With more than 90 percent of the votes counted, the National Election Council said Noboa had an unassailable 12-point lead over his leftist rival Luisa Gonzalez. Official results showed Noboa with 56 percent of the vote, against Gonzalez’s 44 percent — a far bigger winning margin than expected after a virtual tie in the first round. Speaking to jubilant supporters in his hometown of Olon, the 37-year-old president claimed a “historic victory.” “A huge hug
RSS