Ukraine strikes military airfield and damages several fighter planes in western Russia, Volodymyr Zelensky announces

Ukrainian forces struck a Russian army airfield overnight from Wednesday to Thursday and damaged several combat aircraft in western Russia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Thursday. “Last night, the Defense Forces of Ukraine struck an airfield in the Voronezh region. Four SU-34 aircraft were destroyed and two more SU-34s hit,” Volodymyr Zelensky said on social media.

The General Staff of the Ukrainian army clarified for its part that these were strikes on the Borisoglebsk military airfield. “Explosions and a fire were recorded at the site,” the statement said. According to Volodymyr Zelensky, who called these bombings “justified responses to all the Russian terror against Ukraine,” kyiv used a Ukrainian cruise missile, the Long Neptune, for this attack.

A drone storage and launch site in the Orel region (west) and a target in the Black Sea were also targeted, he added. Moscow has not yet confirmed a strike on a military airfield, but has accused kyiv of having targeted a refinery in Ryazan, some 200 kilometers southeast of Moscow.

Since this year, Ukraine has intensified its strikes against Russian territory, a campaign it describes as responses to the near-daily Russian bombings since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022.

However, she said she had observed a pause in recent days in her attacks against Russian refineries after Donald Trump's unilateral announcement on Sunday of an energy truce. Volodymyr Zelensky announced the resumption of these attacks on Thursday, against a backdrop of renewed tensions between the Ukrainian leader and his American counterpart, notably after the surprise announcement of an agreement between Washington and Moscow to purchase Russian diesel.