Russian attack plane crashes into building in town near Ukraine

At least two people were killed on Monday when a Russian Sukhoi Su-34 tactical bomber hit a residential building in Yeisk, a city in the Krasnodar region separated by an arm of the Sea of ​​Azov from southern Ukraine.

The fighter-bomber was in training, according to Moscow, and had a technical failure — the Tass news agency said the incident was caused by an engine fire.

In security camera footage and footage taken by residents, the aircraft flies quite low, presumably after takeoff from the mixed-use airbase next to the city. A flash is seen in one of the plane’s two engines before it crashes. Five of the building’s nine floors caught fire, with damage to 17 apartments.

The two pilots apparently managed to eject. An investigation has been initiated. Although the government talks about a training flight, the pattern of the explosion captured in the images suggests that the plane was armed.

Less than 50 km from the Ukrainian coast, the city’s civil-military airport is a launching pad for attacks in the Kherson region, just ahead. It was one of four annexed by Vladimir Putin at the end of September, an act not recognized by most UN countries. The fights follow.

The Su-34’s reputation as a formidable aircraft was dented in the Ukrainian conflict, which began when Putin invaded the neighboring country in February. Built on the design of the legendary Su-27 fighter, it is a larger, heavier version of the plane, adapted to attack targets on the ground and at sea.

It also adds some air-to-air capabilities to the role of a tactical attack aircraft, which also qualifies it as a fighter-bomber. Before the war, there were 125 of them in operation in Russia, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies (London).

According to the Dutch open-source Oryx military loss tallying website, 16 Su-34s were lost in combat — not counting this Monday’s aircraft, of course. Before Ukraine, the model had been used in actions in Syria, but the absence of air defenses on the sides of the enemies of Bashar al-Assad’s allied dictatorship made life easier for Russians.

In the Arab skies, the Su-34 established a good reputation. Already in Europe, having often to fly below the clouds to have attack visibility, he ended up exposed to portable missiles operated by the Ukrainians and to Kiev’s anti-aircraft batteries, almost all of Soviet origin, such as the S-300.

The relative failure reflects the increasing difficulties Moscow has had in the conflict. Analysts predicted that Russian air superiority would be imposed in the first week of the war, but so far it has never been complete, even in the regions they occupy.

Now, the US has approved the first shipment of modern anti-aircraft batteries to Volodymyr Zelensky’s government, and Europe is debating the same supply. As a result, attacks from a distance or with kamikaze drones, as seen this same Monday in Kiev, tend to be more frequent to spare Putin’s arsenal.