Air War in Ukraine
Two fighter jets from the 114th Tactical Aviation Brigade of the Ukrainian Air Force. In the foreground is a MiG-29UB with “white 20“ fuselage number
Progress on the ground has slowed, civilian killings are escalating
Text: Miro Barič
During the monitored period from April 1 to April 30, several trends were confirmed. Ukraine accepted proposals for a 30-day unconditional ceasefire to start negotiations on a lasting peace, but Russia rejected it and kept setting various impossible conditions. Russian officials probably skipped school when the meaning of the word “unconditional” was taught… Moscow pretends it’s winning, but its actual progress on the ground is minimal. At the same time, attacks on Ukrainian civilians have intensified with unprecedentedly bloody results.
The first day of the monitored period was an exception. On the night of Tuesday, April 1, Russia did not send any kamikaze drones to Ukraine for the first time this year. It launched only two cruise missiles and both were shot down by Ukrainian air defense.
Then, unfortunately, everything returned to the old ways. On Friday, April 4, an Iskander-M missile with a cluster warhead hit a children’s playground in a residential area of the city of Kryvyi Rih. Thirty-four apartment buildings, schools, shops, and cars were damaged. Worse still, 20 people were killed and another 60 were injured. Among the dead were nine children. The youngest victim was Tymofiy, who was three years and nine months old. He was on the playground with his grandmother at the time of the attack. Many children were among the injured, the youngest being just three months old.
Russian cynical propaganda, of course, declared that the precise target of the attack was a restaurant where Ukrainian officers had gathered with their Western instructors. Eighty-five soldiers, including NATO officers, were supposedly killed. This Russian lie is even more pathetic than usual. The restaurant was not hit—it only had broken windows from the explosions on the nearby playground. Moreover, it has security cameras that were recording at the moment of the attack. The footage shows just a few people in civilian clothes, no “dozens of Ukrainian officers and their NATO counterparts.”
On Tuesday, April 8, it had been three years since another Russian war crime. In 2022, Russians fired a missile with a cluster warhead at the train station in Kramatorsk, dispersing submunitions into a crowd of civilians waiting to be evacuated. Fifty-three people were killed, including nine children, and hundreds more were injured. Russia has not admitted responsibility for this crime (or others), despite clear findings by international investigations. And its atrocities continue to this day.
The Worst Attack
On Sunday, April 13, the target was the Ukrainian city of Sumy. This time, the pretext was a supposed attack on Ukrainian soldiers who were to receive awards at a congress center. In reality, there were no soldiers in danger at any time. Two Iskander-M ballistic missiles with cluster warheads struck busy streets full of people heading to church for Palm Sunday services. The result was 35 dead and 129 injured. It was the worst attack on Ukrainian civilians since 2023.
According to the Ukrainians, the rocket attack on Sumy was carried out by two Russian units—the 112th and the 448th rocket artillery brigades. Both became targets of retaliation in the following days. On Tuesday, April 15, the 448th brigade’s position in the village of Klyukva in Russia’s Kursk region was hit. Russian channels reported heavy losses and complained that they could have been easily avoided because the base’s location was publicly known and soldiers didn’t try to conceal it better. On the following two days—April 16 and 17—the base of the 112th Guards Rocket Artillery Brigade in Shuya, Ivanovo region, was hit twice by Ukrainian drones.
A Russian ballistic missile attack on Kryvyi Rih on April 4th claimed 20 civilian lives, including 9 children.
The youngest victim of the attack on Kryvyi Rih was Tymofii, who was not yet 4 years old.
A Russian attack on Sumy on April 13th claimed 35 lives.
Aftermath of the attack on Kyiv on April 24th.
Russian Depot Exploded
On Tuesday, April 22, an explosion occurred in one of the largest and most modern ammunition depots in Russia—the 51st GRAU depot in Vladimir region, 60 km northeast of Moscow. It’s unclear if this was the target of a Ukrainian attack. Russia claims the explosion was caused by employee negligence. Ironically, this depot was built and heavily promoted to calm public fears after a series of ammo depot explosions in Russia in the past. Needless to say, the depot’s construction involved corruption and large-scale embezzlement of state funds.
Whatever the cause, the depot, containing over 100,000 tons of munitions, exploded, and secondary explosions continued for several days. Several villages in the area had to be evacuated because munitions were flying within a 10-km radius.
In retaliation for the depot explosion, Russia did the only thing it knows—attack civilian targets in Ukraine. On Thursday, April 24, it launched a massive attack using 145 kamikaze drones and 70 cruise and ballistic missiles. The targets were mainly Dnipro and Kyiv. Ukrainian air defense destroyed 48 missiles and 64 drones, and another 68 fell for other reasons (either decoys or due to electronic jamming). Still, many projectiles struck residential areas, killing 11 people and injuring 113.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky later stated that one of the deadly strikes on Kyiv was carried out by a North Korean missile containing 116 Western components, mainly from the US.
According to a joint investigative report by Reuters and the Open Source Center, it is North Korean supplies that allow Russia to continue the war. Between September 2023 and March 2025, North Korea sent 15,809 shipping containers of military materials to Russia. North Korean shells now make up, on average, 50 percent of all the ammunition fired by Russian artillery. In addition, North Korea has supplied Russia with about 150 ballistic missiles, 120 heavy self-propelled guns, and 120 multiple rocket launchers. Last but not least, North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un has also sent 14,000 soldiers to help Russia in the Kursk region. And he isn’t doing it out of love for Putin. Moscow provided North Korea with technological assistance worth tens of billions of dollars. Just a reminder: North Korea is still under UN sanctions, and Russia, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, should be enforcing those sanctions, not violating them.
Perhaps this is why Russian propaganda (and the useful idiots outside Russia) long denied and questioned North Korea’s involvement in the illegal war against Ukraine. But exactly the same thing happened as in 2014 when Russia initially denied the “little green men” in Crimea and then Putin decorated them. Now, at the end of the observation period, Putin officially thanked his “North Korean friends” for their solidarity, brotherhood, and heroism in the fighting in the Kursk region. North Korea also confirmed the deployment of its soldiers, and Kim Jong-un called it a “sacred mission.”
An explosion of the 51st GRAU ammunition depot near Moscow.
Civilian Casualties
Unfortunately, the disgusting so-called “human safari” in Kherson continued. Russian drone operators there are boasting about attacks on civilians. On Sunday, April 13th, they dropped a grenade on an 86-year-old woman, who died from her injuries on the spot.
On Thursday, April 17th, an ambulance was hit in Kherson, seriously injuring the 61-year-old driver and a 65-year-old paramedic. And on Tuesday, April 22nd, the Russians dropped grenades from a drone on the grounds of a hospital in this Ukrainian city. Defense against such attacks is very difficult, as the occupiers are right on the opposite bank of the Dnipro River.
In total, Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities have claimed the lives of more than 13,000 civilians since the beginning of the invasion, including 618 children. This sad statistic was valid for the reporting period, and has certainly increased since then. Russian attacks on civilians have intensified since the inauguration of American President Trump and are the worst since the start of the war—despite attempts to end the war, which the Kremlin sabotages. Moscow is showing that it is not interested in peace, but in killing Ukrainians and conquering their territory. However, the second goal is increasingly elusive. During the reporting period, Russian territorial gains were minimal.
Although Russia attacks along the entire front line, it uses small groups of soldiers without armored vehicles and suffers heavy losses. In April, it captured 176 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory, at the cost of 36,000 dead and wounded soldiers. It also lost 4,800 vehicles. At this rate, Russia would conquer Ukraine in the year 2256, and it would cost them 101 million dead and wounded soldiers.
An ambulance hit in Kherson on April 17th.
A destroyed winter stadium in Kherson
Aircraft Losses
Aircraft losses for both sides were balanced during the reporting period, but they are much more significant for Ukraine. In April, it lost two fighter jets, which are of immense value. Worse, in one case, the pilot also died.
This happened on Saturday, April 12th, reportedly in the Sumy region, when an F-16 fighter was shot down and its pilot, Captain Pavlo Ivanov, was killed. This is the second F-16 Ukraine has lost—the first was most likely destroyed by its own air defense, and for a while, the same was suspected in this case as well. However, this time the F-16 was destroyed by a Russian system, likely the S-400. The Russian system launched three missiles at the Ukrainian aircraft. The pilot managed to evade the first one, but the second or third hit the plane.
The second Ukrainian loss occurred on Monday, April 28th, in the morning near the village of Moshny in the Cherkasy region. While repelling an attack by Russian drones, a Su-27S1M fighter with fuselage number “blue 36” from the 39th Tactical Aviation Brigade crashed for unknown reasons. Its pilot, Captain Nikolai Klubnikin, safely ejected.
Russian losses during the reporting period were non-combat in nature. On Wednesday, April 2nd, a Tu-22M3 bomber crashed near the village of Buret in the Usolsky district of the Irkutsk region. According to the Military Watch server, it probably came from the 200th Heavy Bomber Aviation Regiment. All four crew members ejected, but Major Rasul Zhantuev did not survive.
In another incident, the canopy of a Su-34 fighter-bomber broke off during flight—allegedly at an altitude of 10,000 meters. The pilots quickly descended and managed to make an emergency landing. However, both crew members suffered serious injuries from glass fragments. It’s unclear when this accident occurred, but some reports suggest Tuesday, April 8th.
The third Russian loss was due to a saboteur who around April 24th set a Su-27, carrying the fuselage number “blue 35”, on fire at the Centraľnyj airfield in Rostov-on-Don. However, this was a decommissioned aircraft that had been sitting in place since August 2021.
A beautiful example of Ukrainian digital camouflage on a MiG-29 fighter jet with fuselage number “white 74” from the 114th Tactical Aviation Brigade.
This MiG-29 has an upper wing surface paint scheme reminiscent of the Ukrainian Falcons aerobatic team.
A Ukrainian Su-25 in action.
A Ukrainian Mi-24 helicopter with eyes painted on.
A Russian Mi-8 helicopter sporting the Ghostbusters emblem.
Captain Pavlo Ivanov, who died when the F-16 was shot down. He had transitioned from flying the Su-25 to American-made fighter jets.
Former Polish AF MiG-29 fighters in the Ukrainian service.
Interesting artwork on the tails of MiG-29 fighter jets.