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Ukraine claims to have hit an advanced Russian Su-57 stealth fighter.
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Ukraine says the aircraft was directed to an airfield 360 miles from the front line.
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Ukraine has stepped up attacks deep inside Russia in recent weeks.
Ukraine struck for the first time a Russian Su-57 fighter jet parked deep within Russian territory, Ukraine’s main intelligence directorate (GUR) said on Sunday morning.
Ukraine says the aircraft was damaged following an attack on Akhtubinsk airfield in the Astrakhan region of southern Russia, 360 miles from the front line.
Satellite images provided by Ukraine’s military intelligence appear to show the aircraft intact on June 7 and damaged on June 8.
Ukraine’s military intelligence said the Su-57 is “Moscow’s most modern fighter, which can attack with Kh-59 and Kh-69 missiles.”
A pro-Kremlin Telegram channel, Fighterbomber, often used as a source to confirm Russian military losses rather than official confirmation from Moscow, reported that there was shrapnel damage to an Su-57. “If [the bomber] can be restored or not is being determined,” the channel wrote.
Unlike Russia’s Su-25 and Su-35 aircraft, Moscow’s fifth-generation Su-57 fighters have not been widely deployed since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
“The defeat of the Su-57 is the first case of its kind in history,” Ukrainian military intelligence said.
David Ax, military correspondent and blogger, wrote in an article for Forbes that, if confirmed, the loss of the Su-57 “would represent only the second stealth warplane that any country has lost in combat in the four decades since the U.S. Air Force deployed the first stealth plane – the Lockheed Martin F-117.”
In 1999, a Serbian air defense battery shot down an F-117 while it was flying a NATO mission in the Kosovo war, Ax wrote.
Russia is intensifying its attacks deep within Russian territory
In recent weeks, Ukraine appears to be increasing the scope of its attacks inside Russia.
On Saturday, just a day before news of the Su-57 was released, a video emerged on open-source intelligence channels appearing to show a Ukrainian long-range strike drone diving toward the Mozdok air base in Russia’s southern North Ossetia region, 450 miles from the front line in eastern Ukraine.
It is not known whether the drone caused any military damage, but in April satellite images revealed that the base housed 6 Tu-22M bombers, 4 Su-24M/MR attack aircraft and 20 military helicopters.
Mick Ryan, a retired Australian Army general, wrote in Substack earlier this year that such strikes deep within Russian territory “will force a Russian reassessment of its air defense capabilities, as well as having to redeploy those resources further away from where they are most needed.”
Ax said on Sunday: “Russia’s air defenses are so spread thin by Ukraine’s growing drone campaign that they cannot protect all of the Kremlin’s most valuable assets.”
The last major attack on Russian warplanes occurred on May 17, when Ukraine struck the Balbek airfield in occupied Crimea. The attack damaged three planes parked there: one Su-27 and two MiG-31.
Read the original article at Business Insider
