HISTORY
Losses are mounting
Despite the efforts to minimize the risk of
being shot down the losses keep increasing.
They however are well below the numbers
that both sides officially claim. For example,
on June 13 the Russians claimed to have destroyed 201 Ukrainian airplanes, 130 helicopters and 1196 drone since the conflict started.
Needless to say, Ukraine has never possessed such an inventory!
And even though Russia since the beginning
of war claimed several times that the Ukrainian air force was completely destroyed yet
they continued to announce more and more
claims. During the last month only four Ukrainian airplanes and several drones can be confirmed destroyed. This includes a Ukrainian
Su-24 from 7th Tactical Air Brigade shot down
on May 19 near the village of Lypove in Donetsk area. This village is located almost midway of Bakhmut and Severodonetsk where
the intense fighting took place during the past
month. The crew of Lt. Col. Igor Khamar and
Maj. Ilya Negar was killed. Before their demise
they had flown 14 missions mostly against the
columns of the Russian vehicles. The Ukrainian Su-24s were claimed to have been destroyed long time ago. It does not seem to be true.
On June 5, in Zaporozhe area the Ukrainian
Su-27 “blue 38” was shot down. It is possible
that this time it was a case of a friendly fire.
On June 16 a unique situation occurred when
the Russian rockets hit the Ukrainian aircraft
on the ground. Two Mig-29 fighters were
destroyed at the Voznesenski air base near
Mykolaiv.
During the period we write here about the
Russians lost at least four helicopters and
several Su-25 fighter bombers. Further two
Ka-52 helicopters were destroyed (May 19 and
June 4) which brings the total number of this
type of helicopter destroyed to 16. A Mi-28 was
shot down as well (on June 12, the crew was
killed) and a Mi-35M. In this case, on June 16,
these two helicopters came within the range
of the portable rockets belonging to the 231st
This Ka-52 ran into the tops of trees while escaping a Ukrainian missile.
Dnipropetrovsk Battalion of the Territorial
Defense. With the help of chaff flares the helicopters managed to evade the first rocket however the second rocket hit a helicopter flying
close to the ground and it exploded after the
crash.
One Ka-52 was damaged in a peculiar way. In
the first half of June, it flew a mission launching unguided missiles in a “spray and pray”
style. The pilot may have misidentified the safe
zone. The Ukrainians shot a portable missile
on it. The Russian pilot launched chaff flares
and started to perform the evasive maneuvers
at the low altitude while he flew the cluster
of trees. It was documented by the video shot
from the cockpit as well as the photographs
taken upon its landing at the base showing the
damaged fuselage with pieces of wood.
Russians take a damaged Ka-52 helicopter in for repairs.
July 2022
INFO Eduard
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