(AFP) Ukraine announced on Friday that it had shot down a Russian long-range bomber used to launch cruise missiles, for the first time since the invasion of the country began more than two years ago.
“For the first time, anti-aircraft missile units of the Air Force, in collaboration with the intelligence services of the Ukrainian Defense, destroyed a Tu-22M3 long-range strategic bomber,” the Ukrainian Army said in a statement published on social media.
The Ukrainian military intelligence service, the GUR, pointed out that the impact in the air happened “at a distance of almost 300 km from Ukraine” and that the bomber “managed to fly to an area of Stavropol”, in southern Russia, “where it crashed”.
The Russian Defense Ministry has not confirmed that one of its planes was the target of Ukrainian fire.
A military source, however, told state news agency TASS that a Tupolev-22M3 supersonic bomber “crashed in the Stavropol area after a combat mission, while returning to its base”.
According to the same source, the aircraft was not carrying any weapons on board.
The governor of the Stavropol region, Vladimir Vladimirov, stated on Telegram that a Tupolev-22M3 crashed in the region due to a “technical” incident and that at least one crew member died.
Two crew members have been found and the emergency services are looking for the fourth crew member, he added.
Stravropol is a region to the east of the annexed Crimean peninsula, the scene of several attacks since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
In the Dnipropetrovsk region, in central-eastern Ukraine, at least eight people, including two children aged six and eight, were killed and 18 injured in night-time shelling by Russia, according to the Interior Ministry.
The ministry warned that the casualty toll could rise as searches progress in the rubble of the residential buildings that were hit in the city of Dnipro and another nearby town, Synelnykove.
Russia fired 22 missiles and 14 explosive drones during the early hours of Friday against targets in Ukraine, reported the Kiev Air Force, which said it had shot down 29 projectiles.
Russian strategic bomber shot down after air strike leaves 8 dead, Kiev says
(Reuters) Ukraine shot down a Russian strategic bomber 300 km from its border on Friday after the warplane took part in a long-range air strike that killed at least eight people, including two children in the central region of Dnipropetrovsk, Kiev said.
Missiles fell on the city of Dnipro and the surrounding region in the early hours of the morning, damaging residential buildings, the main train station and injuring at least 28 civilians, regional officials said.
In recent weeks, Russia has stepped up its long-range air strikes against Ukraine’s power system and other targets, increasing the pressure on Kiev, far behind on the front lines, where Russian forces have been slowly advancing in the east.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called on Kiev’s allies to urgently supply air defenses, as Ukraine’s stocks are dwindling due to a slowdown in vital military aid from the West.
“Russia needs to be held accountable for its terror, and every missile, every Shahed (drone) needs to be shot down,” he said. “The world can guarantee this, and our partners have the necessary capabilities.”
In a first for Ukraine during the invasion, the commander of the Kiev Air Force and the military spy agency said they had shot down a Russian Tu-22M3 strategic bomber that fired missiles at Ukraine during the night raid.
The warplane, they said, was flying in Russian airspace 300 km from the Ukrainian border.
An intelligence source told Reuters that Kiev used a modified S-200 air defense missile for the attack, but did not say where it had been fired from. The S-200 is a Soviet-era long-range surface-to-air missile system.
Unconfirmed social media images showed a warplane with its tail on fire heading towards the ground.
The Russian Defense Ministry said the bomber crashed in the Stavropol region of southern Russia, hundreds of kilometers from Ukrainian-controlled territory, as it returned to base after carrying out a combat mission.
However, it said that the crash appeared to have been caused by a technical malfunction.
The four Russian Air Force crew members were ejected from the warplane; two were rescued, one died and an operation was underway to rescue the fourth, the Russian regional governor said
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