A video circulating on social media claims to show the destruction of a Russian Su-25 jet by Ukrainian forces near the small town of Avdiivka in Eastern Ukraine, as reported by the German news website merkur.de.
The short video, which reportedly first appeared on the Russian Telegram channel Supernova Plus on Wednesday, November 15, shows a fireball in the sky that then crashes towards the earth. Statements from Ukraine support this claim, as the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces reported on Wednesday that Russia had lost an aircraft in the last 24 hours. The General Staff’s situation report also states that since the beginning of the Russian invasion in Ukraine, Moscow has lost 314,290 soldiers, 5,377 tanks, 324 helicopters, 10,104 armored vehicles, 7,647 artillery systems, and 22 warships. However, these claims cannot be independently verified. The Dutch open-source intelligence website Oryx reports that Russia has lost a total of 30 of its Su-25 jets. According to this information, 16 Su-25 jets have been destroyed on the Ukrainian side so far.
Estimates of military losses in the Ukraine war vary significantly, with the figures presented by Ukraine generally being higher than those of their Western allies. Russia rarely publishes information about its own troop losses, and the figures released in such cases are significantly lower than those of Ukraine.
Image: Kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0, Vladimir Putin (2023-09-30).jpg, via Wikimedia Commons (Image size changed)
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