Russerne skjøt ned egne jagerfly og helikoptre - Flere kilder - Stars & Stripes

 

ASSOCIATED PRESS • May 14, 2023

---

 

Wagner Group head Yevgeny Prigozhin attends the funeral of Dmitry Menshikov, a fighter of the Wagner group who died during a special operation in Ukraine, at the Beloostrovskoye cemetery outside St. Petersburg, Russia, Saturday, Dec. 24, 2022. Prigozhin suggested Sunday that four Russian military aircraft that reportedly crashed in a region that borders Ukraine may have been shot down by Russia’s own forces. (AP)

The head of Russia's feared Wagner private army suggested Sunday that four Russian military aircraft that reportedly crashed in a region that borders Ukraine may have been shot down by Russia's own forces.

Russian officials have not commented on reports in Russian conventional and social media that two fighter planes — an Su-34 and an Su-35 — and two military Mi-8 helicopters crashed in the Bryansk region on Saturday.

State news agency Tass cited unspecified emergency services sources as saying the Su-34 and one helicopter crashed. Other sources, including Vladimir Rogov, the head of a Russian collaborationist organization in Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia province, claimed four aircraft went down.

All of them reportedly belonged to the same military air group.

During the war, cross-border shelling has repeatedly hit Bryansk, which abuts Ukraine's Chernihiv and Sumy provinces. Authorities there claimed that unexplained explosions also derailed two freight trains and that an armed group penetrated the region from Ukraine in March and killed two civilians.

The reported crashes raise concerns about Ukraine's capability to hit Russia and about Russia's military competence.