Ukrainian troops have dramatically downed a Russian fighter jet over eastern Ukraine as an oil depot was set ablaze by a drone strike more than 100 miles away in Russia.
The Soviet-designed Su-25, nicknamed “Frogfoot” by Nato, was downed over Kramatorsk, Donetsk, as it fired on Ukrainian troops.
In footage released by Ukraine’s 28th Brigade, it was seen bursting into flames mid-air and crashing into the ground while flying alongside another aircraft.
In the southern Russian region of Rostov, one of Vladimir Putin’s oil depots was also set on fire after Kyiv launched a cross-border drone attack.
Three Russian tanks were also reported to have been burning at the site after two drones fell on the area overnight.
“There are no casualties,” the governor, Vasily Golubev, said on the Telegram messaging app. “Firefighters are extinguishing the fire.”
On Wednesday, Moscow vowed to carry on fighting in Ukraine and dismissed Mr Zelensky’s suggestion Kyiv was submitting a plan to Washington outlining how to end the war.
Mr Zelensky previously said Russia’s invasion would eventually end in dialogue, but that Kyiv had to be in a strong position and that he would present a plan to US President Joe Biden and his two potential successors.
“This is not the first time that we have heard such statements from representatives of the Kyiv regime,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.
“We are aware of the nature of this Kyiv regime. We are continuing our special military operation and will achieve all of our goals.”
The skirmishes come as Moscow continues to grapple with Ukraine’s shock cross-border incursion into Russian territory, with Kyiv’s troops claiming to have seized around 500sq miles of territory.
Kyiv’s top military commander Oleksandr Syrskyi added that 100 settlements in Russia’s Kursk region had been seized with 594 prisoners of war taken.
In response, Russia has been conducting its largest air attack since the war began in February 2022 – with over 200 drones and missiles launched at Ukraine over the last few days.
On Tuesday, two people were killed when a hotel was “wiped out” in the central Ukraine city of Kryvyi Rih and two others died in drone attacks on the city of Zaporizhzhia in southern Ukraine, officials said.
Marcel Plichta, former analyst at the US Department of Defense, said the timing of the strikes were not a coincidence. “These strikes usually come after some kind of Ukrainian success story,” he told The Independent.
“They are part of an information war. It is an attempt by the Kremlin to get back a narrative that shows Russia as the big strong actor in this war and Ukraine as weak and vulnerable.”
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky vowed to take revenge. “We will undoubtedly respond to Russia for this and all other attacks. Crimes against humanity cannot go unpunished,” Mr Zelensky said.
Mr Zelensky also said western-supplied F-16 fighter jets were used to shoot down some of the Russian missiles launched during the attack.
He said the aircraft, donated by Denmark earlier this year, gave a “very good result” but urged Western countries to provide more of them.
Meanwhile, Moscow’s officials claimed Ukrainian troops had also attempted another cross-border attack into Belgorod, a region of Russia that borders Kursk.
Belgorod’s regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said the situation on the border with Ukraine was “difficult but under control” after claiming hundreds of Ukrainian troops attacked at least one checkpoint.
The claim has not been independently verified and Kyiv has not commented. A Russian military blog said there had been no major attempts to pierce the border.