KYIV/DNIPRO, Ukraine: Ukraine shot down a Russian strategic bomber 300-km from its border on Friday after the warplane took part in an airstrike that killed at least eight people, including two children, in the central Dnipropetrovsk region, Kyiv said.
Missiles rained down on the city of Dnipro and the surrounding region in the early hours, damaging residential buildings, the main train station and wounding at least 28 civilians, regional officials said.
Russia has stepped up its long-range aerial assaults on Ukraine’s energy system and other targets in recent weeks, ratcheting up the pressure on Kyiv far behind the front lines where Russian forces have been slowly advancing in the east.
President Volodymyr Zelensky called for urgent supplies of air defences from Kyiv’s allies as Ukraine’s stocks dwindle due to a slowdown in vital Western military aid.
“Russia must be held accountable for its terror, and every missile, every Shahed (drone) must be shot down,” he said. “The world can guarantee this, and our partners have the necessary capabilities.”
In a first for Ukraine during the invasion, Kyiv’s air force commander and military spy agency said they had shot down a Russian Tu-22M3 strategic bomber that had fired missiles at Ukraine during the overnight attack.
The warplane, they said, had been flying in Russian airspace 300-km from the Ukrainian border.
An intelligence source told Reuters that Kyiv had used a modified S-200 air defence missile for the attack, but did not say where it had been fired from. The S-200 is a Soviet-era long-range surface-to-air missile system.