Posted by Ivan Rendall on 25 November 2015 in Blogging
Captain Konstantin Murakhtin, the surviving Su24 pilot/crewman alive in Syria, is clearly a very resourceful man.
Whatever else is true about the incident, and let’s not forget he is saying no more or less that he is asked to say by his superiors, he was shot down over very, very hostile territory, ejected, was shot at on his parachute, (from the ground, against the Geneva Conventions and contrary to any decent soldierly behaviour), his colleague was killed by such action, he landed in steep-looking forested, mountains crawling with Turkmen/FSA, he evaded capture, alone, was not rescued by the Russian helicopter carrying Russian Marines sent to get him out, it was then shot down and blown up by a TOW missile, one of the Marines was killed, but he continued to evade capture until somehow able to make contact with Syrian Army rescuers who took him to his base.
He is clearly a hell of a good guy, a tough-minded and very determined young man who should be applauded loudly for his personal qualities. Any decent society would hail him as a national hero and he is no less of one because he was doing his duty extremely well for the Russian Air Force. He has those qualities, full stop.
To be clear, his ultimate master, Putin, is not a match for the Captain. Putin is a ghastly apology for a man: confused, duplicitous and not to be trusted a millimeter for all his bare-chested heroism and stagey sporting and martial prowess in front of the cameras. He is a Walter Mitty figure, a man more in love with his own fantasies of warfare than understanding their realities. Putin’s a fake and dangerous.
The Captain is real.
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