Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky and military officials said Friday that Ukrainian forces shot down three Russian Sukhoi Su-34 tactical bombers in the south of the country. These fighter planes could have been victims of the Patriot air defense system
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This would be a major setback for the Russian army. The Ukrainian air force claimed to have shot down three Russian Sukhoi Su-34 fighter-bombers on Friday, December 22 in the south of the country, with President Volodymyr Zelensky specifying that this had happened in the Kherson region where the fighting is taking place. rage.
“Today at noon, three Russian Su-34 fighter-bombers were shot down in the southern operational zone,” Ukrainian Air Force Commander Mykola Oleshchuk announced on Telegram.
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“None of them will go unpunished”
In his speech on Friday evening, President Zelensky clarified that these planes had been shot down by missiles, and declared himself “grateful to our soldiers who destroyed three Russian Sukhoi planes at once. In the south – in our region of Kherson.
“Let every Russian pilot know about our response to every Russian killer – none of them will go unpunished,” added Volodymyr Zelensky.
The Air Force did not specify the fate of the planes’ pilots.
Russian authorities did not immediately confirm the incident. But the influential Russian military blog Fighterbomber cited “combat losses” due, it said, to the Patriot air defense system supplied by the United States.
With Reuters and AFP