Ukraine has shot down a £250m Russian spy plane, as well as a bomber aircraft, in what amounts to its most successful attack on Kremlin aviation since the start of the war.
A Russian A-50 spy plane was reportedly downed in southeast Ukraine, while a Russian Il-22M11 airborne command post was hit near a village just above the Crimean peninsula.
Russia has been using their A-50 aircraft to scope out targets for its long range missile assaults on Ukraine, according to a British Ministry of Defence report last November.
Ukraine’s air force confirmed the two hits in a post on Telegram.
They wrote: “Minus the enemy long-range radar detection aircraft A-50 and the enemy’s control post IL-22. The Air Force is guarding the skies of Ukraine.”
It is the second A-50 to be damaged or destroyed after one was attacked by Belarusian partisan groups last February.
Phillips O’Brien, a UK-based war analyst, said the Ukrainian attack amounts to “arguably their best day in their war against Russian fixed wing aircraft so far in the war”.