Russia accidentally shot one of its $40 million fighter jets over eastern Ukraine. On Sunday night, a pro-Russian Telegram channel posted a video of a burning wreck falling over Luhansk and claimed that Moscow’s soldiers had shot it down.

The aircraft’s side was inscribed with the words “Russian Aerospace Forces.” Alongside the video, he wrote: ‘Last night, the air defense crew of the allied forces destroyed a target in the sky over Alchevsk (LPR). 

 ‘The nature of the target is not clear. The burning ball fell to the ground for more than a minute.’

According to the allegations, Putin’s troops unintentionally shot one of their own aircraft, a rare, $40 million Su-34 fighter-bomber type.

Shortly after Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu instructed his anti-air defenses to target American-made HIMARS rockets first, a plane was shot down.

Putin’s anti-air defenses appear to be straining to stop HIMARS from wreaking havoc on Russia’s invasion by destroying headquarters and ammunition stockpiles far from the frontlines.

Respected security reporter Michael Weiss connected the two incidents by tweeting, “They just downed their own Su-34, shooting for HIMARS.”

Yevgeny Poddubny, who runs a pro-Russian Telegram channel and frequently publishes videos of Putin’s forces attacking Ukraine, first made the incident public.

He tweeted a video of a flaming ball falling from the sky over the city of Alchevsk in the Russian-occupied region of eastern Ukraine late on Sunday.

‘The nature of the target is not clear. The burning ball fell to the ground for more than a minute.’

Video of the disaster that circulated the following morning appeared to show the smoldering remnants of a Su-34 fighter-bomber.

What appeared to be the words “ВКС Роcсия”—an acronym for “Russian Aerospace Forces”—were visible on the side of the aircraft.

When the aircraft was being developed, Russia boasted that it had upgraded avionics, radar, communications systems, electronic warfare, and weapon systems.

It possesses about twice the combat power of the base aircraft, according to Yury Slyusar, President of Russia’s United Aircraft Corporation.

Nearly five months into what was intended to be a few days-long “special military operation,” losing such a sophisticated and uncommon jet is just the most recent example of Putin’s forces being humiliated on the battlefield.

Since then, Russia’s army, once regarded as the second-best in the world, has been forced to withdraw from Kyiv and much of northern Ukraine as their offensive halted.

After giving up on seizing the capital, Putin’s generals focused on capturing the eastern Donbas in its entirety in an effort to encircle a significant portion of the Ukrainian army.

However, months of fierce warfare resulted in the conquest of three cities: Mariupol in the south, Severodonetsk, and Lysychansk in the north. This plan has also failed.

In order to provide Putin with the best bargaining position possible when it comes time to reach a peace agreement, Russia’s major goal in the fight currently appears to be to cling to the meager gains it has gained since the war began.

While this is going on, Ukraine is staking what little manpower it still has and any weaponry it can procure from the West on retaking territory before support for the conflict wanes.

Source: dailymail.co.uk

Several shocking videos from various fighting zones have repeatedly appeared amid the continuing Russia-Ukraine conflict. Some of them are horrifying, brutal, and heartbreaking. However, a video of a single malfunctioning Russian surface-to-air missile executing a spectacular U-turn and crashing into the firing troops has gone viral.

The spectacular failure reportedly happened early on Friday morning close to the town of Alchevsk, which is located approximately 55 miles south of Severodonetsk, the scene of the worst battle.

The video depicts a Russian missile from a volley that was fired in the Luhansk region rotating 180 degrees in midair and crashing into a target that is remarkably close to its point of launch.

The air defense missile system, which may have been an S300, may have been operated by pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine from the secessionist Luhansk People’s Republic, according to reports. Although unlikely, some have theorized that the problem might have been brought on by a lingering Ukrainian drone that jammed or compromised the system.

According to local media sources, a fire broke out at the scene not far from homes. There were no reports of injuries sustained by Russian or separatist forces during the incident.

A residential neighborhood in northeastern Riyadh was hit in 2018 by a US-made Patriot air defense missile that was malfunctioning and being deployed to intercept ballistic missiles launched by Yemen’s Houthi party.

Throughout the three-month fight, Ukraine used loitering drones to strike targets, most notably the Turkish Bayraktar TB2 drone, which Russia’s much-lauded anti-aircraft missile systems had trouble neutralizing.

Although it costs the city of Severodonetsk to be essentially destroyed, Russia has been employing its concentrated artillery barrages to force Ukrainian positions there back over time.

Ukraine has requested long-range, high-precision artillery missile weaponry from the West due to Russia routinely bombing their munitions production and storage facilities and their artillery running out of ammunition.

The majority of the military equipment and other supplies have come from the United States. It recently announced that it would provide new weaponry valued at another 450 million dollars, including four HIMARS rocket launchers.

In the scorching battlefields close to Severodonetsk and Lysychansk in the east, the systems provide a capability that Ukraine desperately lacks. They have the ability to simultaneously launch a large number of precision missiles with a 50-mile range.

Source: dailymail.co.uk