There have been unconfirmed reports that a Russian aircraft or drone has been shot down over Ukraine’s Donetsk region on Saturday, possibly in a friendly fire incident.
According to the Ukrainska Pravda newspaper the Russian aircraft had been launching guided aerial bombs at Ukrainian positions and was shot down its own troops on the ground.
Footage shared on social media showed an aircraft being hit in the air by a missile and the remnant of an aircraft after it crashed into the ground, though it is unclear whether they were taken from the same incident. A former adviser to Ukraine’s Internal Affairs Ministry suggested the downed aircraft was either an Su-25 ground support jet or a Hunter S-70 drone.
Russian forces have been advancing slowly in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, which President Vladimir Putin annexed in September 2022, but at the cost of heavy casualties. Earlier this week the Ukrainian military confirmed it had withdrawn from Vuhledar, a city in Donetsk province which had a pre-war population of around 14,000, following weeks of intense fighting.
However Putin’s troops are still struggling to recapture parts of Kursk province in Russia which were seized by Ukrainian troops in a surprise August offensive.
Citing a source in the Ukrainian air force, Ukrainska Pravda reported a Russian aircraft was brought down over the Donbas in a friendly fire incident. The newspaper said it was hit while dropping glide bombs, large but cheap explosive devices that have been used to devastate Ukrainian defenses. Russian military bloggers also reported one of their aircraft had been destroyed, though some details remain unclear.
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Anton Gerashchenko, formerly an adviser to Ukraine’s internal affairs minister, shared footage of a destroyed aircraft on X adding: “Videos appeared online showing a Russian Su-25 that crashed in Donetsk region.
“There is unconfirmed information that it could have been friendly fire by Russians themselves.”
Gerashchenko later said the aircraft could have been “a Russian Hunter S-70 drone that was allegedly carrying out a reconnaissance flight,” citing a Russian military Telegram channel.
Newsweek contacted the Russian and Ukrainian Ministries of Defense for comment on Saturday by email outside of regular office hours.
Separately, on Saturday the Ukrainian military released a video which it said showed a Russian tank being destroyed by a drone which dropped molten thermite over it.
A number of videos have been published showing Ukrainian “dragon drones” dropping thermite, a mixture of aluminum and rust which burns at extremely high temperatures, over Russian positions over the past few weeks.
Saturday also saw the Ukrainian Defense Ministry release its latest estimate for Russian casualty figures over the past 24 hours. Kyiv claimed the Russians had suffered 1,280 casualties, and lost eight tanks and 31 infantry fighting vehicles, over this period, though Newsweek has not independently verified this claim.
Angelica Evans, a Russia researcher with the U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War think tank, reported that as of October 3, Moscow controlled 98.8 percent of Ukraine’s Luhansk province. Combined the Luhansk and Donetsk provinces make up the Donbas.