Originally Posted by
Kulverstukas
Google Translate on the caption: “The last battle of the pilot Su-25SM. He blew himself up with a grenade to avoid being captured by militants.” If true, and the video clip seems consistent on first viewing, then at least he died a dignified and valiant death. Hope he took a few with him too.
As for tooling around at a few thousand feet without MAWS, manoeuvre or pre-emptive countermeasures... very, very unwise. Either they’re getting complacent, are rotating too many inexperienced pilots through with insufficient training, or there is some unexplained strategic imperative that is driving them to accept much higher risk levels than the West would...