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Ukraine claims to have hit an advanced Russian Su-57 stealth fighter jet.
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Ukraine says the plane targeted an airfield 360 miles from the front line.
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Ukraine has intensified attacks deep into Russia in recent weeks.
Ukraine has struck for the first time a prized Russian Su-57 fighter jet stationed deep in Russian territory, Ukraine’s main intelligence directorate (GUR) said on Sunday morning.
Ukraine says the plane was damaged after an attack on Akhtubinsk airport in the Astrakhan region of southern Russia, 360 miles from the front line.
Satellite images from Ukraine’s military intelligence appear to show the plane was intact on June 7 and damaged on June 8.
Ukraine’s military intelligence said the Su-57 is Moscow’s “most modern fighter aircraft, capable of attacking with Kh-59 and Kh-69 missiles.”
A pro-Kremlin Telegram channel, Fighterbomber, which is often used as a source to confirm Russian military losses rather than official confirmation from Moscow, reported that shrapnel damage had been damaged to an Su-57. “Or [the bomber] can be restored or not is currently being determined,” the channel wrote.
Unlike Russia’s Su-25 and Su-35 aircraft, Moscow’s fifth-generation Su-57 fighters have not seen widespread use since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
“The defeat of the Su-57 is the first such case in history,” Ukraine’s military intelligence said.
David Ax, a military correspondent and blogger, wrote in an article for Forbes that, if confirmed, the loss of the Su-57 “would be only the second stealth fighter jet that a country has lost in the forty years since the U.S. Air Force entered combat has lost. the very first stealth aircraft deployed: the Lockheed Martin F-117.”
In 1999, a Serbian air defense battery shot down an F-117 while it was flying a NATO mission in the Kosovo War, Ax wrote.
Russia is stepping up its attacks deep into Russian territory
In recent weeks, Ukraine appears to be increasing the reach of its attacks on the Russian hinterland.
Saturday, just a day before the news about the Su-57 was made public, a video surfaced through open source intelligence channels that appeared to show a Ukrainian long-range attack drone diving towards the Mozdok air base in the southern region of North Ossetia, 700 kilometers from the front line in eastern Ukraine.
It is not known whether the drone caused any military damage, but in April satellite images showed the base was home to six Tu-22M bombers, four Su-24M/MR attack aircraft and 20 military helicopters.
Mick Ryan, a retired Australian army general, wrote on Substack earlier this year that such strikes deep into Russian territory “will force a Russian reassessment of their air defense assets and deploy these assets further from where they are most needed.”
Ax said on Sunday: “Russia’s air defenses are spread so thin by Ukraine’s escalating drone campaign that they cannot protect all of the Kremlin’s most valuable assets.”
The last major attack on Russian warplanes took place on May 17, when Ukraine bombed Balbek airport in occupied Crimea. The attack damaged three aircraft were stationed there: an Su-27 and two MiG-31s.
Read the original article on Business Insider
