Ukrainian forces shot down and destroyed a Russian Su-25 ground attack aircraft in the eastern Donetsk region, Kyiv’s military said on Wednesday.
“Ukrainian warriors from the 28th Mechanized Brigade shot down a Russian Su-25 plane in the Kramatorsk direction. Bravo!” Ukraine’s defense ministry said in a statement posted to social media.
Newsweek contacted the Russian defense ministry by email for comment.
Start your day with great news 🔥
Ukrainian warriors from the 28th Mechanized Brigade shot down a russian Su-25 plane in the Kramatorsk direction.
Bravo! pic.twitter.com/HpHhWiuLya— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) August 28, 2024
The Context
Russia’s Air Force has suffered extensive losses since the start of Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
What We Know
The country’s Khortytsia group of forces operating in Donetsk said anti-aircraft units of the 28th Separate Mechanized Brigade shot down the jet using a Man-Portable Air-Defense System (MANPADS).
The jet “was trying to fire at the positions of units of the Defense Forces,” it said in a statement on Telegram.
“Another Russian Su-25 burns out in the steppes of the Ukrainian Donbas,” the Khortytsia group of forces said, referring to an area that comprises Ukraine’s occupied Donetsk and Luhansk regions. “As of today, Russian assault aviation has one less aircraft. Its wreckage now decorates the Donetsk landscape.”
The Kremlin has been pushing for the total capture of the Donbas since Russia’s initial invasion of eastern Ukraine in 2014, and intense fighting continues in the area.
Dutch open-source intelligence defense analysis website Oryx has visually confirmed that 112 Russian aircraft have been destroyed and 15 damaged since the start of the full-scale war in Ukraine.
Oryx has also visually confirmed that 94 Ukrainian aircraft have been destroyed since the beginning of the war, with three damaged and one captured.
The General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said in an update on Wednesday that Moscow had lost 368 aircraft since Russia launched its full-scale invasion.
Newsweek couldn’t independently verify Kyiv’s figures.
This is a breaking story and it will be updated.
RIA Novosti/Sputnik/AP
