At least eight people, including two children, were killed in nighttime strikes in Ukraine’s east-central Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukrainian authorities announced on Friday, claiming to have shot down a Russian strategic bomber for the first time.
The foreign ministers of the G7 states at the same time made a “commitment” to “strengthen the means of defense” of Ukraine against Russian air attacks, following their meeting in the south from Italy.
For its part, Moscow reported the death of a crew member in the crash of a Tupolev-22M3 plane following a “technical failure”, without mentioning Ukrainian involvement. The two countries seem to be talking about the same device.
In Ukraine’s Synelnykove district, southeast of Dnipro, the capital of the Dnipropetrovsk region, “more than ten houses were damaged” and “six people died, including children aged six and eight”, said Ukrainian Interior Minister Igor Klymenko on Telegram.
In the city of Dnipro, where a four-story apartment building and other “civil infrastructure” were hit, two people died, he added, warning that the toll was likely to rise.
At least 25 people were injured, according to the local governor.
“Massive bombing”
The Ukrainian public railway company Ukrzaliznytsia denounced on Friday “a massive bombardment” of its infrastructure in Dnipro and its region, reporting one employee killed and seven injured.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky once again called on his partners to send “air defense systems to Ukraine”.
These systems “should not be stored in warehouses but deployed in cities and communities facing terror,” he argued.
Russia bombs Ukrainian towns daily and kyiv says it has an acute lack of ammunition to repel these attacks, while Western aid is reduced or arrives late.
The US House of Representatives announced that it would vote on Saturday on a package of $61 billion in aid to Ukraine, blocked for months.
In total, Russia fired 22 missiles and 14 explosive drones into Ukrainian territory during the night from Thursday to Friday, the Ukrainian Air Force said in the morning, claiming to have shot down 29 of these devices.
Volodymyr Zelensky said he visited soldiers in the Donetsk region in the east, where the Russian army has increased its pressure in recent months.
The president explained that he had inspected “the construction of fortifications”, one of Ukraine’s current priorities in order to curb Moscow’s troops.
Shot down on combat mission
Ukrainian Air Force Commander Mykola Oleshchuk said Friday that his forces had, “for the first time,” “destroyed a long-range strategic bomber Tu-22M3, carrying X-22 cruise missiles.”
“I thank everyone who made this result possible today. Evil will be punished! », he congratulated himself.
Ukraine had already claimed responsibility for the destruction of a device of this type in August, but it was on the ground and not in the air.
According to Ukrainian military intelligence (GUR), this time it is a plane which took part in the night bombings and “was shot down following a special operation”.
The impact took place “at a distance of approximately 300 kilometers from Ukraine”, claimed the GUR, according to which the aircraft, which was carrying out a “combat mission”, crashed in the Stavropol region , in southwest Russia.
The Russian Defense Ministry has not confirmed that Ukrainian fire had targeted one of its planes, but an army source told the state news agency TASS that a Tupolev-22M3 supersonic bomber had “crashed in the Stavropol region after a combat mission, while returning to its base”.
The aircraft had no weapons on board, this source assured.
The governor of the Stavropol region, for his part, announced that a Tupolev-22M3 had crashed in this area after a “technical” incident, causing the death of at least “one member of the crew”.
“A plane fell in the fields in the Krasnogvardeiskii district,” Vladimir Vladimirov wrote on Telegram.
“According to preliminary data, a technical failure was the cause of the accident,” he added, without giving further details.
Two other members of the plane’s crew were found alive and emergency services are still looking for the fourth, he said.
The Krasnogvardeiskii district is located some 300 km from the Ukrainian border.