“The rescue operation is successfully over. The pilot has been delivered to our base. Safe and sound,” Shoigu said during a meeting of the Defense Committee, adding that the operation was performed by Russian and Syrian special forces.

Shoigu said the joint operation had taken about 12 hours and thanked all special forces’ personnel that took part in the operation to rescue the pilot.

The information that one of the two pilots from the downed plane is alive was released earlier on Wednesday by the Russian ambassador in France, Aleksandr Orlov. He said the pilot had been wounded.

"One on board was wounded when he parachuted down and killed in a savage way on the ground by terrorists in the area. The other managed to escape. According to the latest information he has been picked up by the Syrian Army and should be going back to the Russian Air Force base," Ambassador Aleksandr Orlov told Europe 1 radio.

On Tuesday, a Russian Su-24 tactical bomber performing a combat sortie over Syria near the Turkish border was brought down by a Turkish Air Force fighter jet.

Ankara and Moscow have given conflicting reports regarding the incident. Russia said the warplane had not violated Turkish airspace, while Turkey maintained the bomber was downed after it violated Turkish airspace for 17 seconds. rt.com reported

O/A