Status: 15.01.2024, 16:32 PM
By: Kathrin Reikowski
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A Russian A-50 aircraft in the town of Zhukovsky near Moscow is said to have been shot down by Ukraine, possibly also by Russia. (Archive photo from 2015) © dpa/ Picture Alliance/ Sergei Chirikov
Ukraine - according to its own statements - may have shot down two military aircraft that were strategically important for Russia.
Kyiv - Already "shortly after take-off", a huge early warning aircraft of the type A-50 from Russia is said to have crashed over Ukraine on Sunday evening. An Ilyushin Il-22 had to make an emergency landing after an attack. Ukraine claims both, which has not yet been independently verified.
The Kyiv Post reports that this is seen in Ukraine as "one of the worst days" for the Russian Air Force since the beginning of the Ukraine war. According to Newswee,Russia had only nine of the A-50 reconnaissance aircraft, and lost the second of them on Sunday.
Ukrainian defense: "Burning in hell"
While the A-50 plane is said to have been shot down in the Kyrylivka community south of Melitopol, the second plane had to make an emergency landing in the Russian part of Azov after being hit. Both planes were shot down in the area of the Sea of Azov. This is out of Ukraine's presumed reach, according to the Kyiv Post. When asked, the military intelligence service HUR did not provide any information on how the planes could have been shot down.
Meanwhile, the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian military thanked "the insurgents for the miraculous planning and execution of the operation in the Azov region!" in his Telegram channel. Air Force Chief Mykola Oleshchuk posted on social media: "This is what you get for Dnipro! Burns in hell." On January 14, 2023, dozens of people were killed when a Russian missile hit a high-rise building in Dnipro.
Planes accidentally shot down by Russia itself?
It is not yet entirely clear how the two planes were actually attacked. Especially in Russia, the narrative is said to be circulating that the Russian air defense shot down the plane itself, as reported by Newsweek, among others. A Telegram channel close to the Russian Ministry of Defense had speculated about this.
"This doesn't make sense to me," Kyiv-based security analyst Jimmy Rushton wrote on Network X (formerly Twitter). The planes were flying slowly and could not have been shot down by mistake. Some Russian military bloggers took a similar view. (cat)