KYIV, Ukraine – Ukraine’s Air Force said on Friday it had shot down a Russian strategic bomber, but Moscow officials said the plane crashed in a sparsely populated area due to a malfunction after a combat mission.
Neither claim could be independently verified. Previous Ukrainian allegations of shooting down Russian warplanes during the more than two-year war have met silence or denials from Moscow.
Meanwhile, Russian missiles hit cities in Ukraine’s central Dnipro region, killing eight people, including an 8-year-old girl, and wounding 25, local officials said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy repeated Kiev authorities’ near-daily calls for more Western air defense systems, again drawing a parallel with the way Israel blunted a recent Iranian attack.
Missile and drone attacks can be thwarted, he wrote on social platform X: “This has been demonstrated in the skies of the Middle East and should also work in Europe.”
Russia’s air force is far more powerful than Ukraine’s, but sophisticated missile systems supplied by Kiev’s Western partners are a major threat to Russian aviation as Kremlin forces slowly advance along the line of front of about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) in what became an oppressive war of attrition. Ukrainian officials say they expect a major Russian offensive in the summer.
Ukraine said the Air Force and military intelligence cooperated to shoot down the Tu-22M3 bomber with anti-aircraft missiles. Russia typically uses the bomber to fire Kh-22 cruise missiles at Ukrainian targets from within its own airspace. The plane can also carry nuclear warheads.
The Russian Defense Ministry said the warplane crashed “in a deserted area” in the southern Stavropol region, hundreds of kilometers (miles) from the border with Ukraine.
Three crew members were rescued after being ejected from the aircraft and the search for a fourth is ongoing, according to the ministry. But Stavropol Governor Vladimir Vladimirov said one of the rescued pilots had died.
On Christmas Eve, Ukraine claimed to have shot down two Russian fighter jets. In January, the Ukrainian air force said it had shot down a Russian early warning and control plane and a key command center aircraft that relays information to troops on the ground, in what appeared to be a significant blow to Kremlin forces. The following month, Ukraine said it shot down another warning and control plane.
Also in January, Moscow accused Kiev of shooting down a Russian military transport plane carrying Ukrainian prisoners of war on their way to a prisoner exchange.
Russian forces conducted a combined air strike using 22 missiles of various types and 14 Shahed drones overnight, the Ukrainian Air Force said.
All fourteen Shahed drones and 15 missiles were intercepted, it said.
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