Putin awarded the Order of Courage to Russian pilots who died in Turkey

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on awarding the Order of Courage to pilots who died while fighting forest fires in Turkey. The text of the decree, dated August 14, posted on Sunday on the official Internet portal of legal information.

The list of awardees includes Lieutenant Colonel Vladislav Berkutov, Lieutenant Colonel Vadim Karasev, Colonel Yevgeny Kuznetsov, Senior Lieutenant Nikolai Omelchenko, Senior Sergeant Yuri Chubarov. They were awarded posthumously with the wording “for courage, courage and dedication shown in extinguishing fires in the Republic of Turkey.”

On Saturday, Vladimir Putin expressed condolences over the deaths of the military, noting that they were carrying out “an important humanitarian mission,” “they acted in the most difficult conditions and fulfilled their human and professional duty to the end.” transfers RBC.

Russian amphibious aircraft Be-200, which carried five Russian military and three Turkish citizens, crashed in the afternoon of August 14th. The military extinguished a fire in a forest after a lightning strike. The plane crashed near the city of Adana on the territory of the province of the same name (initially it was reported that the plane crash occurred near the city of Kahramanmaras). The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation noted that the plane crashed while landing.

In early July, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, at the direction of the president, sent an amphibious aircraft Be-200 from the naval aviation of the Navy to Turkey to assist in extinguishing forest fires. On July 29, the Russian Embassy in Ankara reported that three Russian Be-200 aircraft were taking part in extinguishing forest fires in Turkey.