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(AP) — Ukraine on Sunday said its forces hit an ultra-modern Russian warplane stationed on an air base nearly 600 kilometers (370 miles) from the front lines, after its Western allies allowed Kyiv to use their weapons for limited strikes inside Russia.
Kyiv’s main military intelligence service shared satellite photos it said showed the aftermath of the attack. If confirmed, it would mark Ukraine’s first known successful strike on a Su-57 fighter plane, a twin-engine stealth fighter lauded as Moscow’s most advanced military aircraft.
In one photo, black soot marks and small craters can be seen dotting a concrete strip around the parked aircraft. According to the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense, the strike took place on Saturday at the Akhtubinsk base in southern Russia, some 589 kilometers (366 miles) from the front line.
It wasn’t immediately clear what weapons were used, but the airfield’s distance from Ukraine suggests that it was likely hit by drones.
The strike comes after the United States and Germany recently authorized Ukraine to hit some targets on Russian soil with the long-range weapons they are supplying to Kyiv. Ukraine has already used U.S. weapons to strike inside Russia under newly approved guidance from President Joe Biden that allows American arms to be used for the limited purpose of defending Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city.
The Ukrainian agency said that the plane, which is capable of carrying stealth missiles across hundreds of kilometers (miles), was among “a countable few” of its type in Moscow’s arsenal. According to reports by Russian agencies, Moscow’s armed forces obtained “more than 10” new Su-57s last year, while 76 are set to be produced by 2028.
Moscow did not immediately comment on the reports. Russia’s Defense Ministry on Saturday claimed its forces downed three Ukrainian drones in the Astrakhan region, home to the Akhtubinsk airstrip.
Since Moscow’s full-scale invasion more than two years ago, Kyiv has ramped up domestic drone production and used the drones to strike deep inside Russia, including a gas terminal near St. Petersburg that lies over 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) north of the Ukrainian border.
Elsewhere, Ukrainian forces kept up drone attacks on Russia’s southern border regions, according to local Russian officials.
Three drones hit Belgorod province late on Saturday, damaging a power line and blowing out windows but causing no casualties, said Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov. Another two drones and a Ukrainian-made missile were brought down over the region on Sunday, the Russian Defense Ministry said.
Across Ukraine’s front-line provinces, Russian shelling killed at least three civilians and wounded at least nine others on Saturday and overnight, according to reports by regional officials.
A man died and two women suffered wounds in the village of Khotimlya, east of Kharkiv, Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said. Shelling also damaged the local school, a council building, a shop and private homes, Syniehubov said.
Heavy battles continued in the area as Ukrainian troops try to beat back Russia’s invading forces after a weekslong push by Moscow that sparked fears for Kharkiv, located just 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the Russian border, and a wave of civilian evacuations.
Russia’s coordinated new offensive has centered on the Kharkiv region, but seems to include testing Ukrainian defenses in Donetsk farther south, while also launching incursions in the northern Sumy and Chernihiv regions.
The easing of restrictions on the use of Western weapons will help Ukraine protect Kharkiv by targeting Russian capabilities across the border. It is unclear what other impact it may have on the direction of the war, in what is proving to be a critical period.
The move drew a furious response from Moscow, and warnings it could embroil NATO in a war with Russia. But Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, described it as “common sense.”
“What was happening up around Kharkiv … was a Russian offensive where they were moving from one side of the border directly to the other side of the border, and it simply didn’t make sense not to allow the Ukrainians to fire across that border, to hit Russian guns and emplacements that were firing at (them),” Sullivan said Sunday in an interview with CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
