This afternoon, February 17, the Air Force Command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported that three planes of the Russian occupation forces were shot down in the Eastern direction at once — two Su-34 front-line bombers, which were apparently dropping bombs with a UMPK kit, as well as a Su-35 fighter, which covered the bombers.
UMPK
Russian propagandists, in their traditional style, began to downplay these losses, in particular, stating that one Su-35 was indeed lost, but from “friendly fire” — their own anti-aircraft missile systems, while the Su-34 was allegedly able to return.
Read also: Air Force “destroyed” two Su-34 and one Su-35 at once
Lieutenant General Mykola Oleschuk, commander of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, responded to this message by publishing a screenshot with data from the Cospas-Sarsat system (notifies about the location of pilots’ personal radio buoys in case of accidents), where you can see as many as four points on the map. “Look for ‘brothers’ in these areas,” says Oleschuk.
So, for example, one of the signals is fixed in the area of the city of Amvrosiyivka, in Donetsk region, which is roughly more than 70 km from the front line. Two more signals – not far from Dyakovo, in Luhansk region, about 100 km from the front line. And another one is already directly on the territory of the Russian Federation, at a distance of up to 120 km.
As we previously assumed, it is quite likely that in this episode the enemy planes were shot down by the same “roaming Patriot” with an aerodynamic range of 160 km with GEM-T missiles – for example, we can recall that it was the Patriot last year in December that could shoot down four Su-34 and another Su-30 in different directions. In addition, the downing of the Russian A-50 DRLV could also have been the result of this air defense system, Defense Express previously reported how close the Patriot had to be to shoot down the A-50 over the Sea of Azov.
We would like to remind you that the range of UMPK drops by Russian planes is up to 60-70 km, and during the last month, especially in the Avdiyivka direction, the occupiers dropped a record number of bombs from UMPK on the positions of our military, the use of four dozen or more aerial bombs was recorded directly in the Avdiivka area.
In any case, the destruction of the next three Russian planes is an example of another well-thought-out operation with the most effective use of one or another weapon available in the assets of the Defense Forces of Ukraine.
Read also: Withdrawal from Avdiivka: were there other options and what was done