| Occurrence | |
|---|---|
| Date | 13 May 2023 (2023-05-13) |
| Summary | Shot down |
| Site | Bryansk Oblast,Russia, near theborder with Ukraine |
| Total fatalities | 9 |
On the morning of 13 May 2023, an air group of four aircraft of theRussian Air Force crashed almost simultaneously in theBryansk Oblast ofRussia: twoMi-8 helicopters, aSu-34 fighter-bomber and aSu-35 fighter.[1][2] According to Baza, nine people were killed: three crew members each in two Mi-8s, two Su-34 pilots and a Su-35 pilot.[1]
The incident occurred on the backdrop of theRussian invasion of Ukraine.[3] According toKommersant, the group was heading to bombChernihiv Oblast inUkraine.[1]
During theRussian invasion of Ukraine, Russian troops repeatedly shelled theChernihiv andSumy oblasts ofUkraine, as well as the city ofKharkiv borderingRussia. At the same time, the heads of western Russian provinces,Belgorod,Bryansk andKursk oblasts, regularly announcedsupposed artillery shelling and attacks against the regions.[3]
On the eve of the incident in Bryansk Oblast, on 12 May, a Russian military helicopter Mi-28 crashed in theDzhankoi Raion of the Russian-annexedCrimea.[3][4]
According toKommersant, the fallen aircraft were part of the same aviation group. The fighters were supposed to launch a missile strike on Ukraine's Chernihiv Oblast, while the helicopters were to "insure" the aircrews were safe and to make sure the Russian soldiers did not get shot down by theUkrainian forces.[5]
According to Russian military officers, both Mi-8 helicopters crashed overKlintsy, while the Su-34 and Su-35 fighters crashed near the border with Ukraine in theStarodubsky District. According to Russian authorities, the incident injured a civilian woman and damaged five households on the ground.[1]
It was reported that one of the downed helicopters was a rare modification, Mi-8MTPR-1. Helicopters of this type are equipped with the Rychag-AV electronic warfare system, which was used to detect enemy radar stations and installradar jamming.[6]
Various versions of what could have happened were put forward. According to one of them, the military aircraft could have been shot down by saboteurs withMANPADS who penetrated into Bryansk Oblast from Ukraine. UkrainianTelegram channels suggested the aircraft could have been shot down byfriendly fire from Russian air defense forces.[7] There was also a version that Ukrainian aircraft could have shot down Russian targets from Ukrainian territory usingAIM-120 medium-range missiles.[8]
Yurii Ihnat, Speaker of the Air Forces Command of theArmed Forces of Ukraine, said that the Ukrainian army was not involved in the crashes of aircraft in Bryansk Oblast, but said that "Russian air defense is involved". At the same time, Ihnat claimed that the Russians lost in fact five aircraft: three helicopters and two airplanes.[9]
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the then head of theWagner Group, also hinted that Russian air defense systems could have been involved in the crashes: "Four planes, if you draw a circle around the places where they fell, it turns out that this circle with a diameter (where they all lie exactly in the circle) is 40 kilometers. That is, the radius of the circle is 20 kilometers. Now go to the Internet and see what kind of air defense weapon could be located in the center of this circle, and then build your own versions."[10]
President of BelarusAlexander Lukashenko said that Belarusian troops were put on high alert due to events in Russia's Bryansk Oblast, where "four aircraft were shot down".[11][12]
The Wall Street Journal correspondentYaroslav Trofimov suggested this incident constituted the "worst day for the Russian military aviation since the first week of the war, when Moscow assumed that it had destroyed Ukrainian air defences".[13]
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