Saturday was not a good day to be a pilot flying combat missions near the Ukrainian border. In a set of attacks that were described as having taken place “almost simultaneously,” Russia had four aircraft shot down out of the sky. A fifth aircraft crashed later the same day. Ty Rogaway at The Drive reports that the four initial losses were two helicopters and two fighter jets. The craft were two Mi-8 Hip helicopters, a Su-34 Fullback strike fighter, and a Su-35 Flanker-E. There were no survivors from the crashes. But questions remain as to who actually brought them all down. (More on that in a moment.) But the remarkable part of the story is that none of the aircraft even made it into Ukrainian airspace. They all came down inside Russia’s borders.
The Russian Air Force appears to have had one of its worst days of the war in more than a year on Saturday. While details remain limited and are likely to change, it appears Russia lost two Mi-8 Hip helicopters, a Su-34 Fullback strike fighter, and a Su-35 Flanker-E, with no survivors. What makes all this especially troubling for the Russian Air Force, is that all these losses happened in its own country, in areas not too far from the border with Ukraine.
All four aircraft came down in Bryansk Oblast, well within Russian territory opposite northeast Ukraine’s Chernihiv Oblast. Video shows one of the Mi-8s breaking up after what looks as if a missile hits it near the town of Klintsy, about 50 kilometers north of the Ukrainian border.
The Drive monitors local sources on the ground in both Russia and Ukraine and posted videos and photos of the Russians being taken down. Here’s one of them (one of the choppers being shot down), but click through at the link above to watch all the rest.
BREAKING: A russian Su-34 jet and a MI-8 helicopter has reportedly been shot down over Russia's Bryansk region. 2 confirmed dead in helicopter crash. pic.twitter.com/Hb4fa1JOLj
— Faytuks News Δ (@Faytuks) May 13, 2023
Russian media outlet Readovka claimed that the aircraft were shot down by Ukrainian military forces, going on to say that the Russian pilots were “ambushed.” Not to put too fine of a point on this, but if you invade another country and fire missiles at them every day for more than a year, you really shouldn’t act too surprised or dismayed if they start shooting back as you approach their border before you can bomb them again.
But were they all shot down by Ukraine? Early reports suggested that the planes and helicopters might have been taken down by “friendly fire.” Their own air defense forces are reportedly on a “hair trigger” in that region. But the Russians have also begun a search for potential “saboteurs” who might be either Russians opposed to the war or Ukrainian special forces operating covertly inside Russia’s borders and armed with man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS). The commander of the Ukrainian Ground Forces made some encouraging comments about the progress their troops are making but didn’t go so far as to specifically say they had shot down the planes and helicopters.
The other aspect of this engagement to note, as pointed out by Rogaway, is that Russia was already reportedly down to 20 helicopter airframes before this happened. So no matter who did it, they potentially could have lost ten percent of their remaining helicopter force in a single day. They are working on producing more, but this could represent a significant blow to their efforts in eastern Ukraine, at least in terms of air support for their ground forces or rapid deployment of special forces troops.
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