WATCH Russian military strike Ukrainian airfield
Moscow has conducted long-range strikes and drone attacks against various Ukrainian Armed Forces targets including a military airbase, the Russian Ministry of Defense stated Wednesday, without providing location details.
Earlier, Ukrainian media reported blasts in the city of Mirgorod in Poltava Region, where a large military airfield is located.
Russian war correspondent Andrey Rudenko published a brief video on his Telegram channel on Wednesday which apparently showed a Su-27 fighter jet being destroyed by a short-range Iskander ballistic missile. The clip was filmed from a bird’s-eye view by a surveillance drone. He added that it was the airbase in Mirgorod.
“Nearby you can see a dump of aircraft debris from previous attacks on this airfield,” Rudenko pointed out.
The Defense Ministry also published footage showing an Iskander strike on an S-300 air defense system in the area near the Mirgorod airfield, located in the village of Polyvyanoye. The system covered the airfield located to its west. Drone footage showed a blast and large plums of billowing smoke.
The clip also showed a secondary detonation, the ministry added. It reported destroying two launchers, two radar stations and a combat control cabin in the attack.
The S-300 is a Soviet-designed surface-to-air defense battery which has been in service since the late 1970s; several versions have been produced. This marks the ninth time Ukraine has lost such a system this year.
The strikes come as Kiev prepares for the long-expected transfer of US-designed F-16 fighter jets by a group of European NATO members. Belgium, Denmark, Norway, and the Netherlands are expected to donate several dozen of the aircraft from their respective fleets.
The head of Ukraine’s Air Force Command, Sergey Golubtsov, said in an interview last week that Kiev intends to station some of the fighter jets at foreign bases. Ukraine does not have enough pilots to operate them all, he claimed, so spare planes would be redeployed from NATO nations as needed.
Andrey Kartapolov, chairman of the Russian State Duma Defense Committee, warned on Monday that any base from which Ukraine deploys F-16s for combat missions would be considered a legitimate military target by Moscow, regardless of which country it is in.
