Ukraine On Sunday, he said his forces struck a state-of-the-art Russian warplane stationed at an air base about 370 miles from the front lines.
Kiev's main military intelligence service shared satellite photos it said showed the aftermath of the attack. If confirmed, it would mark Ukraine's first known successful strike against a twin-engine Su-57 stealth jet, hailed as Moscow's most advanced fighter jet.
In one photo, black soot marks and small craters can be seen splattering a strip of concrete around the parked plane. According to the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, the attack took place on Saturday at the Akhtubinsk base in southern Russia, about 366 miles from the front line.
The Ukrainian agency said the plane, which is capable of carrying stealth missiles hundreds of kilometers away, is among “a very few” of its kind in Moscow's arsenal. According to reports from Russian agencies, Moscow's air force obtained “more than 10” new Su-57s last year and has placed an order for a total of 76 to be delivered by 2028.
A spokesman for Ukraine's military intelligence, Andriy Yusov, told Ukrainian television hours later that the attack may have damaged two Su-57 jets stationed at the base, and also wounded Russian personnel.
“There is preliminary information that there could be two Su-57 aircraft affected,” Yusov said. He did not immediately produce any evidence to support the claim.
Ilya Yevlash, a spokesman for Ukraine's air force, told Ukrainian media in April that Moscow was trying to keep its Su-57 fleet “at a safe distance” from Ukrainian firepower.
The attack comes after the United States and Germany recently authorized Ukraine to hit some targets on Russian soil with the long-range weapons they are supplying to Kiev. Ukraine has already used US weapons to attack Russia under recently approved guidance from President Joe Biden that allows US weapons to be used for the limited purpose of defending Kharkiv, Ukraine's second largest city.
But the distance from the Ukrainian airstrip, as well as unofficial comments from Russia, point to the likely use of Ukrainian-made drones. Since the full-scale invasion of Moscow more than two years ago, Kiev has increased domestic production of drones and used the munitions to attack Russia. In January, drones hit a gas terminal near St. Petersburg that is more than 600 miles north of the border.
A popular pro-Kremlin Telegram channel believed to be run by a retired Russian military pilot claimed that three Ukrainian drones crashed into the airstrip in Akhtubinsk on Saturday and that flying shrapnel damaged the jet .
“It is now being determined whether or not it can be restored. If not, it would be the first combat loss of an Su-57 in history,” the Fighterbomber channel reported.
A military correspondent for Russia's state news agency RIA, Aleksandr Kharchenko, in a Telegram post on Sunday denounced Moscow's failure to build hangars to protect its planes. But the message stopped short of directly acknowledging the strike.
Russia's so-called “military bloggers” such as Fighterbomber are often considered sources of information about military losses in the absence of an official Kremlin comment. Russia's Defense Ministry and senior political figures did not comment on Sunday.
The ministry said on Saturday that its forces shot down three Ukrainian drones in the Astrakhan region, home to the Akhtubinsk airstrip. Igor Babushkin, the governor of Astrakhan, reported earlier that day that Ukraine attempted to attack an unspecified facility there, but claimed the attack was unsuccessful.
Russia's fleet of Su-57s, nicknamed “Outlaws” by NATO, have been largely absent from Ukrainian skies and have instead been used to fire long-range missiles across the border. The UK Ministry of Defense said in an intelligence briefing last year that Russia was likely trying to avoid “reputational damage, reduced export prospects and the engagement of sensitive technology” that would come from losing any Su-57 aircraft in enemy territory.
“Common Sense” War Tactics.
Elsewhere, Ukrainian forces continued drone strikes in Russia's southern border regions, according to local Russian officials.
Three drones struck Belgorod province on Saturday afternoon, damaging a power line and blowing out windows but causing no casualties, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said. Five more drones and a Ukrainian-made missile were shot down over the region on Sunday, the Russian Defense Ministry said.
According to an update from Pepel (Ashes), a channel run by journalists from Belgorod now based outside Russia, Ukrainian drones hit an ammunition depot outside the town of Rakitnoye, about 22 miles from Ukraine, on Sunday afternoon. . Images circulating on social media showed thick plumes of smoke rising into the sky. In one video, a woman's voice is heard saying “I wonder if soldiers lived there?”
Gladkov, the governor, did not directly comment on these claims, but confirmed that a fire had broken out in a “non-residential building” near Rakitnoye. He said no one was hurt.
In Ukraine's frontline provinces, Russian shelling killed at least three civilians and wounded at least nine others on Saturday and overnight, according to reports from regional officials.
One man was killed and two women were injured in the village of Khotimlya, east of Kharkiv, Governor Oleh Syniehubov said. The shelling also damaged the local school, a council building, a shop and private houses, Syniehubov said.
Heavy fighting continued in the area as Ukrainian troops try to repel invading Russian forces after a weeks-long push by Moscow that sparked fears across Kharkiv, just 12 miles from the Russian border, and a wave of 'civil evacuations.
Russia's new coordinated offensive has focused on the Kharkiv region, but appears to include testing Ukraine's defenses in Donetsk further south, while also launching incursions into the northern regions of Sumy and Chernihiv.
Easing restrictions on the use of Western weapons will help Ukraine protect Kharkiv by targeting Russian capabilities across the border, Ukrainian and Western officials say. It is unclear what other impact it may have on the direction of the war, in what is proving to be a critical period.
The move prompted an angry response from Moscow, which warned it could involve NATO in a war with Russia. But Jake Sullivan, Biden's national security adviser, described it as “common sense.”
“What was happening around Kharkiv … was a Russian offensive where they were moving from one side of the border directly to the other side of the border, and it just didn't make sense not to allow them Ukrainians would shoot across that border, to hit Russian weapons and emplacements that were firing at (them),” Sullivan said in a Sunday interview with CBS' “Face the Nation.”
Last week, President Biden publicly he apologized in Ukraine during a months-long halt in US military assistance that allowed Russia to make gains on the battlefield.
Speaking in Paris a day after them attended the 80th anniversary events of D-Day in Normandy, Mr. Biden apologized to the Ukrainian people for weeks of not knowing whether more aid would arrive as conservative Republicans in Congress held out $61 billion military aid package for Ukraine for six months.
“You have not bowed. You have not given in at all,” Biden told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. “You keep fighting in a way that's just remarkable, just remarkable. We're not going to walk away from you.”
