Ukraine hit five of Moscow’s fighter jets with an overnight drone strike on Russian soil, a source in Kyiv’s security service has told Ukrainian outlets.
Russia’s defence ministry claimed to have shot down two drones in the Bryansk and Kursk regions, which both border Ukraine, giving no information about possible damages or casualties.
But the Kyiv Post and Ukrainska Pravda both cited sources in Ukraine’s SBU security service as claiming strikes on four Russian Su-30 fighter jets and one MiG-29 at an airfield in Kursk.
It came as Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin was confirmed by Russia’s Investigative Committee to have died in a plane crash near Moscow on Wednesday, citing the results of genetic tests it said confirmed the identities of the 10 bodies found in the wreckage.
Western politicians and commentators have speculated that Mr Putin ordered Prigozhin to be killed as punishment for Wagner’s brief mutiny in June. Meanwhile, a resurfaced clip of Prigozhin talking about a “plane falling apart in the sky” has resurfaced on social media.