Russian cargo plane crashes in Syria, killing all 39 aboard

A Russian military transport plane crashed in Syria on Tuesday, killing all 39 people aboard, Russia's Defence Ministry said, an incident that sharply raises the death toll from the Kremlin's Syria operation.

The death toll was revised after an initial report of 32 dead. The ministry said all of the dead were military personnel, something it hasn't always admitted in recent incidents in Syria.

The defence ministry was cited as saying that the plane, a Soviet-designed An-26, crashed at Russia's Hmeymim airbase in Latakia Province and that initial information suggested the crash may have been caused by a technical fault.

Russian state TV cited military officials as saying the aircraft had not been brought down by enemy fire. It said the crash happened as the plane came in to land at Hmeymim, and that it came down around 500 metres short of the runway.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, in a telegram offering his condolences, said when the crash happened, the service personnel on board were returning to base after completing an unspecified combat mission.

President Vladimir Putin, on an election campaign stop in the Ural mountains, was briefed on the crash via telephone by Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and expressed his condolences to the relatives and colleagues of those killed, the Kremlin said.

Russia doesn't officially reveal Syria toll

Putin, who is running for re-election later this month, ordered "a significant part" of Moscow's military contingent there to start withdrawing in December, declaring their work largely done.

But casualties continue to mount.

Russia's armed intervention in Syria turned the tide of the conflict in favour of Putin's ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. It has been portrayed inside Russia as a display of Russia's resurgent military might.

It has, though, come at a cost.

According to a Reuters tally based on official announcements before Tuesday's crash, 44 Russian service personnel have died in Syria since the operation started in September 2015. In one incident, in February this year, Syrian rebels shot down a Russian warplane. The pilot ejected and died on the ground in a gunfight with rebels.

In addition to those deaths, in December 2016 a plane carrying a Russian military orchestra to Syria crashed in the Black Sea, killing all 92 people aboard.

Under a decree signed by Putin, the Russian authorities do not have to disclose all deaths of service personnel in Syria because they are classified as a state secret.

The official toll does not include private military contractors who, according to people familiar with the deployment, are in Syria fighting in support of the Russian operation. Moscow denies they exist.

About 300 men working for a Kremlin-linked Russian private military firm were either killed or injured in Syria last month when their column was attacked by U.S.-led coalition forces, according to three sources familiar with the matter.

Russian officials said a handful of Russian citizens may have been killed in that incident but they were not members of Russia's armed forces.