Saturday turned out to be a dark day for Russian aviation. Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Colonel Yuriy Ignat said on Sunday that three helicopters were shot down by air defense forces in the Bryansk region of Russia on Saturday, and not two, as previously reported, Ukrainian Pravda writes, confirming the spectacular strike. Kyiv, about which only one Russian publication wrote.

Colonel Ignat said on national television on Sunday that Russia had lost a total of five aircraft on Saturday.

Ukraine routinely does not recognize hostilities inside Russia, and daily Ukrainian military casualties in Russian casualties do not include downed planes.

Ignat said that Russian planes and helicopters “had some problems”.

He noted that the planes were on their way to the front to carry out a combat mission.

On Saturday, several Russian planes crashed near the border with Ukraine in Bryansk, Russia, and the information was initially uncertain.

Initially, Russian propaganda stated that the helicopter crashed due to an engine fire.

Then he reported on the crash of the fighter without clarifying the cause of the incident.

Then they admitted to shooting down two helicopters and a plane, usually blaming “Ukrainian saboteurs”.

The only publication that wrote about the spectacular coup in Kyiv was the Russian publication Kommersant, which specializes in economic news.

The respected independent business daily Kommersant wrote on its website that Su-34, Su-35 fighter jets and two Mi-8 helicopters formed a raid group and were “almost simultaneously shot down” from the ambush. in the Bryansk region, bordering northeastern Ukraine.

“According to preliminary data… the fighter jets were to launch a missile-bomb attack on targets in the Chernihiv region of Ukraine, and the helicopters were there to support them – among other things, to pick up the Su crews if they were shot down. .”

Kommersant did not provide any evidence for its report that four planes were shot down, but several pro-war military bloggers made the same claim.

At the same time, in Russian Telegram channels, bloggers cried about the crew of the plane, who were supposed to die after the plane fell, which seems to confirm the information of “Kommersant”.

The Ministry of Defense of Russia did not comment on the incidents at the last briefing.

The incidents came a day after a Russian helicopter crashed in Crimea, which was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014.

On May 12, as a result of the fall of the Mi-28N military helicopter, two pilots were killed.

The Ministry of Defense of Russia announced that the Mi-28 crash occurred during a training flight in Crimea.