ONE of Putin’s prized £82million fighter jets was blown out of the sky by his OWN forces, reports claim.
Pro-war Telegram channels said the high-tech Su-35 was downed by a Russian S-300 air defence missile over the Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine.
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Video appears to show the moment the single seat war jet exploded in the sky and burst into orange flames.
It was not clear if the pilot was able to eject.
But Russian aviation Z-blogger “Fighterbomber” indicated he did not survive in a post acknowledging the loss of the valuable plane.
He posted a photo of an Su-35 with the message: “Eternal flight, brother.”
Meanwhile Ukrainian channel “Crimean Wind” posted the video footage and said: “Russian air defence vs Russian Su-35 1:0.
“Russian soldiers used an S-300 missile to shoot down their own plane near Tokmak. Work, brothers! Do not stop!”
The loss of the war jet, if confirmed, would mark a new setback for Putin’s forces in the invasion of Ukraine.
In April, a bomb accidentally dropped by a Russian Su-34 fighter jet blasted a 70ft crater in the city of Belgorod, 25 miles inside Russia’s border wthe Ukrainian border.
Journalist Dmitry Kolezev said at the time: “It was miraculous no one died – at least according to official figures.”
In another expensive blunder, a “drunk” Russian soldier rolled a £400million missile launcher into a ditch.
Photos of the giant eight-wheeler lying helplessly on its side added further humiliated Putin’s flailing army.
And a recent succession of strikes by Ukraine resulted in the loss of their Black Sea Fleet headquarters one week ago.
Putin’s hand-picked admiral was said to be among scores of officers killed by Storm Shadow missiles in Sevastopol.
Only days ago it was revealed Putin’s own officers may have handed over intelligence to Ukraine which allowed it to launch an attack that wiped out the Black Sea Fleet headquarters.
Anti-Putin partisan group ATESH told the Kyiv Post they paid the soldiers who passed on the military intel leading to the deadly Black Sea strike as an “additional incentive”.
Ukraine now claims that Russia suffered 62 “irreversible losses” when the Minsk was hit in the crippling early morning blitz.
Russia has failed to gain air superiority since the invasion, even though Ukraine’s air force is relatively tiny.
Putin has already lost approximately 90 planes since the start of the war, according to an assessment by the British MoD.
And the “viability” of the Russian Aerospace Forces’ long-term tactical air power is likely to degrade as the war goes on, said the MoD.
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Sarah Hooper
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