Ukraine’s air force claimed Friday it shot down a Russian strategic bomber, but Moscow officials said the plane crashed in a sparsely populated area due to a malfunction after a combat mission.
Ukraine’s air force claimed Friday it shot down a Russian strategic bomber, but Moscow officials said the plane crashed in a sparsely populated area due to a malfunction after a combat mission.
Neither claim could be independently verified. Previous Ukrainian claims of shooting down Russian warplanes during their more than two-year war have met with silence or denials from Moscow.
Meanwhile, Russian missiles struck cities in the central Dnipro region of Ukraine, killing eight people, including an 8-year-old girl, and injuring 25, local officials said.
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy repeated Kyiv officials’ almost daily appeals for more Western air defense systems, again drawing a parallel with how Israel blunted a recent Iranian attack.
Missile and drone attacks can be thwarted, he wrote on social platform X: “This has been demonstrated in the skies over the Middle East, and it should also work in Europe.
