A Russian air drive Su-27 in 2016.
Wikimedia Commons
The Ukrainian navy on Dec. 29 apparently despatched extra explosives-laden drones to strike a Russian air drive base outdoors Moscow.
It was at the least the fourth such raid in a month—and it apparently rattled Russian air-defenders. If you consider the chatter on social media, within the chaos following the assault a Russian missile battery shot down … a Russian air drive Sukhoi Su-27 fighter jet.
The alleged shoot-down, if it occurred—and that’s a giant if—might mirror a presumably related incident that occurred over Kyiv within the first heady days of Russia’s wider struggle on Ukraine that began in late February. In that incident, jumpy Ukrainian air-defenders could have shot down a Ukrainian air drive Su-27.
We don’t know quite a bit in regards to the obvious Dec. 29 raid on Engels, a bomber base 400 miles southeast of Moscow. We know extra about earlier assaults on the identical base on Dec. 26 and Dec. 5.
Russian media confirmed Ukrainian drones had been liable for the sooner raids. It’s attainable the drones had been 1970s-vintage, jet-propelled Tupolev Tu-141 reconnaissance vehicles that the Ukrainians pulled out of storage, filled with explosives and programmed to strike Engels.
The Dec. 5 raid on Engels broken a Tupolev Tu-95 bomber. A simultaneous strike on Dyagilevo air base, 100 miles southeast of Moscow, broken a Tupolev Tu-22M bomber. Three Russian personnel died within the Dyagilevo raid.
It appears the Dec. 26 assault largely was a bust for the Ukrainians. Russian air-defenders reported capturing down the approaching drone or drones. Three Russian troops reportedly died from the falling particles.
The Dec. 29 raid apparently additionally failed to break Engels. Roman Busargin, the governor of the encompassing Saratov Oblast, confirmed the destruction of a Ukrainian drone and denied experiences that native college students had been evacuating their colleges.
Users of the Telegram social-media app in the meantime circulated rumors that spooked Russian air-defenders round Engels opened hearth on a blip on their radars—a blip that turned out to be a Russian Su-27. The pilot died, in response to the rumors.
There’s probability this isn’t true. It’s value noting that Busargin made no point out of the alleged shoot-down. Nor is there any video or photograph proof of the incident. Yet.
But there’s actually precendent for a friendly-fire shoot-down. On July 17, Russian air-defenses across the metropolis of Alchevsk in Russian-occupied jap Ukraine shot down a Russian air drive Sukhoi Su-34M—one of many air drive’s finest jets.
Russian propagandist Yevgeny Poddubny captured the incident on video—and a separate video of the wreckage confirmed the aircraft’s identification.
Five months earlier, within the darkness on Feb. 25, a Ukrainian air drive Su-27 exploded whereas patroling over Kyiv. The well-known pilot, Oleksandr Oksanchenko, died consequently.
While it’s theoretically attainable a really lengthy and really fortunate shot by a Russian S-400 missile battery, presumably positioned someplace in Belarus,, was responsbile for the February shoot-down, it’s extra possible—as some media have reported—{that a} Ukrainian missile battery mistook the Sukhoi for a Russian jet.
It was the primary full day of the broader struggle, in spite of everything—and Russian planes had been thick within the sky over north-central Ukraine. “Both Russian and Ukrainian aircraft were threatened by friendly fire at this time,” Mykhaylo Zabrodskyi, Jack Watling, Oleksandr Danylyuk and Nick Reynolds defined in a study for the Royal United Services Institute in London.
It’s attainable the identical worry and confusion that made the sky over Kyiv so harmful again in February now has troubled the air area over Saratov Oblast.
Yes, Russian missile batteries are capturing down many, if not most, of the drones the Ukrainians are hurling at Engels and Dyagilevo. But they’re not capturing down all the drones—and so they is perhaps endangering pleasant plane, too.
“Russia has long given a very high priority to maintaining advanced ground based air-defenses,” the U.Ok. Defense Ministry stated, “but it is increasingly clear that it is struggling to counter air threats deep inside Russia.”
