Vladimir Putin was left humiliated following an attack on Saturday which saw a £74million fighter jet shot down by Ukraine. Footage shared by the Ukrainian military showed the burning wreckage in a field in Russia’s Kursk Oblast, the same region that underwent the daring assault by Kyiv’s troops in August last year.
“This morning, on June 7, 2025, as a result of a successful Air Force operation in the Kursk direction, a Russian Su-35 fighter jet was shot down,” said the Ukrainian military in a statement on Telegram messenger. The pilot is believed to have ejected, with Russian forces reportedly evacuating him. The Russian military has not yet commented on the attack, but the Russian pro-war Telegram channel Fighterbomber claimed that the pilot survived.
Ukraine did not give more details of how the plane was shot down but said it was “as a result of a successful operation”. The military shared aerial footage of the downed jet, engulfed in flames.
A local news outlet called Pepel, based in Russia’s border region of Belgorod, reported that a jet did crash in the Kornevsky district of the Kursk region.
Russia is believed to have lost at least seven Su-35s since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, either to friendly fire, crashing or Ukrainian forces shooting them down. Ukraine claims Russia has lost a total of 413 aircraft since the beginning of the unlawful invasion ordered by Putin.
The Su-35 is used to launch attacks on Ukrainian territory with Kh-59M and Kh-31 missiles, as well as FAB and KAB aerial bombs. The fighter has a combat payload capacity of 8,000 kilograms.
The downing comes six days after Ukraine’s security agency conducted a large drone attack on over 40 Russian military aircraft, damaging or destroying strategic bombers and spy planes. The damage was estimated by Kyiv at £5billion or more.
A video released by the agency shows a drone striking a Russian Tu-22M3 strategic bomber at the Belaya airbase in Siberia, which had already been hit a number of times.