Late on Christmas Eve, 24 December, a Ukrainian anti-air unit shot down another Russian Su-34 fighter bomber, according to the Ukrainian Air Force Commander, Lt-Gen Mykola Oleshchuk. 

“It was confirmed that our anti-aircraft missile system hit a Su-34 fighter-bomber in the Mariupol sector! It did not return to the airfield,” Oleshchuk wrote on Telegram.

The commander also said that the Russians might have lost another aircraft, a fighter jet, as it was over the Black Sea during Russia’s daily Shahed drone attack against Ukraine. However, the results of air defense actions were being verified at the moment:

“In the Odesa sector, we conducted a combat operation against a Russian Su-30 in the Black Sea – we are studying the materials of objective control to know for sure whether the target was hit or not,” Oleshchuk wrote.

Recently, Russia lost three Su-34 bomber aircraft in one combat engagement, after which its glide bomb attacks on Kherson Oblast decreased significantly.

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