Ukraine says its forces hit ultra-modern Russian stealth jet parked at air base hundreds of miles from the front lines

Ukraine on Sunday said its forces struck an ultra-modern Russian warplane parked at an air base about 370 miles from the front lines.

Kiev’s main military intelligence service shared satellite photos that it said showed the aftermath of the attack. If confirmed, it would mark Ukraine’s first known successful attack on a Su-57 twin-engine stealth jet, touted as Moscow’s most advanced fighter plane.

In one photo, black soot marks and small craters can be seen dotting a strip of concrete around the parked aircraft. According to the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, 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, was among “a countless number” of its type in Moscow’s arsenal. According to reports from Russian agencies, the Moscow Air Force obtained “more than 10” new Su-57s last year and placed an order for a total of 76 to be delivered by 2028.

A spokesman for Ukraine’s military intelligence, Andriy Yusov, hours later said on Ukrainian TV that the attack may have damaged two Su-57 jets parked at the base and also injured Russian personnel.

“There is preliminary information that there could be two Su-57 aircraft affected,” Yusov said. He did not immediately provide any evidence to support the claim.

Ilya Yevlash, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force, told Ukrainian media in April that Moscow was trying to keep its fleet of Su-57s “at a safe distance” from Ukrainian firepower.

The attack comes after the United States and Germany recently authorized Ukraine to strike some targets on Russian soil with the long-range weapons they supply to Kiev. Ukraine has already used U.S. weapons to attack inside Russia under guidance recently approved by President Joe Biden that allows U.S. weapons to be used for the limited purpose of defending Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city.

But the distance of the airstrip from Ukraine, 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 drone production and used the munitions to attack deep within Russia. In January, drones struck a gas terminal near St. Petersburg, more than 600 miles north of the border.

A popular pro-Kremlin Telegram channel, reportedly run by a retired Russian army pilot, claimed that three Ukrainian drones struck the Akhtubinsk airstrip on Saturday and that shrapnel damaged the jet.

“It is now being determined whether it can be restored or not. Otherwise, it would be the first combat loss of an Su-57 in history”, reported the Fighterbomber channel.

A military correspondent for the Russian state news agency RIA, Aleksandr Kharchenko, in a Telegram post on Sunday, denounced Moscow’s failure to build hangars to protect its aircraft. But the post stopped short of directly acknowledging the strike.

Russia’s so-called “military bloggers,” like Fighterbomber, are often seen as sources of information about military losses in the absence of official commentary from the Kremlin. Russia’s Defense Ministry or senior political figures had no comment on Sunday.

The ministry said on Saturday that its forces shot down three Ukrainian drones in the Astrakhan region, where the Akhtubinsk airstrip is located. Igor Babushkin, governor of Astrakhan, reported that same day that Ukraine attempted to attack an unspecified facility there, but stated that the attack was unsuccessful.

The Russian Su-57 fleet – nicknamed “Criminals” by NATO – has been largely absent from Ukraine’s skies and has 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 compromise of sensitive technology” that would come from the loss of any Su-57 jets on the ground. enemy.

“Common Sense” War Tactics

Elsewhere, Ukrainian forces have maintained drone strikes in Russia’s southern border regions, according to local Russian officials.

Three drones struck Belgorod province on Saturday night, damaging a power line and blowing out windows but causing no casualties, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said. Another five 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 Belgorod journalists now based outside Russia, Ukrainian drones on Sunday afternoon struck an ammunition depot on the outskirts of the town of Rakitnoye, about 35 kilometers from Ukraine. Images circulating on social media showed thick clouds of smoke rising into the sky. In one video, a woman’s voice is heard saying: “Did soldiers live there?”

Gladkov, the governor, did not comment directly on these allegations, but confirmed that a fire occurred in a “non-residential building” near Rakitnoye. He said no one was injured.

In Ukraine’s frontline provinces, Russian shelling killed at least three civilians and injured at least nine others on Saturday and overnight, according to reports from regional officials.

A man died and two women were injured in the village of Khotimlya, east of Kharkiv, Governor Oleh Syniehubov said. The bombing also damaged the local school, a municipal building, a store and private homes, Syniehubov said.

Heavy fighting continued in the area as Ukrainian troops tried to defeat invading forces from Russia after a weeks-long offensive by Moscow that raised fears in Kharkiv, located just 12 miles from the Russian border, and a wave of civilian evacuations.

Russia’s new coordinated offensive has focused on the Kharkiv region, but appears to include testing Ukrainian 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 secure Kharkiv by targeting Russian capabilities across the border, according to Ukrainian and Western officials. It is not clear what other impact it might have on the direction of the war, in what is proving to be a critical period.

The move provoked a furious response from Moscow and warnings that 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 the Ukrainians to fire across that border. border, to target Russian weapons and positions that were firing at (them),” Sullivan said Sunday in a interview with CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

Last week, President Biden publicly apologized to Ukraine for a months-long delay in American military assistance that allowed Russia to make battlefield gains.

Speaking in Paris the day after they had participated in the 80th anniversary events of D-Day in Normandy, Biden apologized to the Ukrainian people for weeks of not knowing whether more assistance would come while conservative Republicans in Congress maintained a US$61 billion military aid package to Ukraine for six months.

“You didn’t bow. You didn’t give in,” Biden told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. “You continue to fight in a way that is simply remarkable, simply remarkable. We will not turn away from you.”