More than 18,000 people, almost half of them civilians, have died in Russian air strikes on Syria since Moscow began its game-changing intervention three years ago, a monitor said on Sunday.
An ally of Syria's government, Russia began carrying out bombing raids in the country on 30 September 2015 – more than four years into the conflict, AFP said.
Since then, they have killed 18,096 people, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. "That number includes 7,988 civilians or nearly half of the total," said Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman.
Another 5,233 Islamic State (IS) group militants were also killed in Russian strikes, with the rest of the dead including other rebels and militants, the Britain-based monitor said.
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