By John Dara
Ukrainian forces claimed Saturday to have inflicted one of Russia’s heaviest ever day of losses with more than 1,000 casualties.
It comes as new totals by Kyiv’s defence ministry put President Vladimir Putin’s losses at 2,800 troops, 80 tanks, 516 armoured vehicles, 10 airplanes and seven helicopters.
Russian officials have made similar claims – that Moscow has captured more than 160 troops; destroyed 74 Ukrainian military ground facilities; downed five fighter jets and one helicopter; and destroyed 18 tanks and other armoured vehicles.
Meanwhile Ukrainian forces earlier today claimed to have hit an airfield in Millerovo in Rostov, southern Russia, destroying at least one of Moscow’s Su-30SM fighter jets.
Footage posted online purported to show the tail end of a missile strike on the Russian military’s airbase around 10am local time (8am GMT) with several buildings on the site engulfed in flames.
At least 37 Ukrainians, among them several civilians, have been killed and hundreds more injured in fighting in the past 24 hours.
Russian troops were by this afternoon bearing down on the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv after advancing from Chernobyl, less than 60 miles north of the city, this morning.
Ukrainian troops tasked with the city’s defence began setting up defensive positions across highways, on bridges and on street corners in preparation for what seemed set become a bloody street-to-street fight over the weekend.
Kyiv’s military, which was left to face Moscow alone after NATO and the US confirmed they would not put boots in the ground, is far inferior to its Russian counterpart with an air defense system and air force dating back to the Soviet era.
Few expect Ukraine to emerge victorious from what is almost certain to be a prolonged, bloody, and vicious war – but so far, Kyiv’s forces have managed to inflict heavy losses on Putin’s troops.
Flaming wreckage is seen falling from the skies over Kyiv, as Ukraine claimed to have shot down a Russian fighter jet.
Ukraine claimed to have shot down a Russian jet over the outskirts of Kyiv overnight, with wreckage falling on a house and leaving several people injured.
Meanwhile by late Thursday forces had claimed to have shot down at least six helicopters, including four Russian KA-52 Alligator attack helicopters during a battle for Gostomel air base on Thursday.
A fifth helicopter was forced to make an emergency landing at the field under heavy fire.
Just after midday on Thursday, the skies over Kyiv swarmed with a squadron of 20 Russian helicopters which pounded the air base’s runway.
But Ukrainian ground forces launched a fight-back, moving in to retake the air field as jets streaking over the city, shooting down the Russian helicopters.
The attack underlined just how close the invaders were to the capital. Soon after, the distant roar of fighter jets high above the city stoked another wave of panic.
The Ukrainians also reported their MiG jets shot down at least one Mi-8 helicopter.
Ukrainian forces also claimed to have shot down six Russian jets sky over the eastern Donbass region while another plane appeared to fall from the skies near the capital.
Shortly after 7pm GMT on Tuesday, Russia’s defence ministry said a Russian Antonov An-26 transport plane carrying military equipment crashed in its southern Voronezh region near Ukraine, killing all crew members on board.
‘During a planned flight to transport military equipment, an An-26 aircraft of the Russian aerospace forces crashed,’ the defence ministry said in a statement carried by Russian news agencies.
‘The crew died,’ the statement said, without providing any details.
The defence ministry blamed equipment failure for the crash, which it said had not caused any destruction on the ground.
A defence ministry spokesman, speaking to AFP, confirmed the crash but declined to say how many crew members had been killed.
An-26 planes carry up to six crew members and up to 38 military personnel. Overall, the Ukrainian armed forces claimed to have shot down five aircraft and six helicopters.
Ukrainian forces downed a Russian fighter jet over Kyiv early on Friday (pictured, the wreckage) and later hit an airfield in Millerovo in Rostov, southern Russia, destroying at least one Su-30SM around 10am local time (8am GMT).
Ukrainian forces destroyed dozens of Russian tanks along the eastern and northern borders by the end of the day on Thursday, adding two more and a fighting vehicle in Trohizbenko to the tally early on Friday.
According to the country’s defence ministry, the figure was higher than 30 by the end of Thursday. They also claimed to have destroyed ‘up to’ 130 armoured combat vehicles.
Ukrainian forces put up a stiff resistance around Kharkiv where multiple Russian tanks and armoured vehicles were pictured destroyed – with bodies lying in the streets.
Later, another BMP fighting vehicle was captured, along with the crew of four Russian soldiers, in the same region in eastern Ukraine.
And around 2pm local time (12pm GMT) the Ukrainian military said troops had destroyed five armoured transport vehicles and a car during fighting at the Vistupovich-Rudnya border point between Ukraine and Belarus.
A further 15 T-72 tanks were destroyed or damaged by the Ukrainian forces using the Javelin PTRK, an American anti-tank missile, nearly Glukhov in the country’s east late this afternoon.
In other incidents, tank-busting rocket launchers donated by Britain were said to have destroyed Russian tanks, while Javelin missiles gifted by Sweden destroyed a column of enemy vehicles.
Dozens of Russian troops have been captured by Ukrainian forces, Kyiv’s ministry of defence has claimed.
Britain’s Ministry of Defence put Moscow’s losses around 450, though it was not clear if that included captured or dead soldiers.
Videos posted by the Ukrainian MoD early on Friday purported to show at least nine captured Russian soldiers.
Several Russian troops videoed by their captors have claimed they believed they were conducting training exercises in the border regions and did not know they were being sent to invade Ukraine.
The claim was echoed by the brigade commander of the 74th brigade of motorcycle rifles, believed to be a reconnaissance platoon made up of 20 to 50 soldiers, who allegedly surrendered to Ukrainian forces during fighting on Thursday.
Commander Konstantin Buynichev is said to have claimed he only learned of the invasion on Wednesday and believed they were returning home.
He allegedly said: ‘Nobody thought that we were going to kill. We were not going to fight – we were collecting information.’
The announcement of Buynichev and his troops’ capture was posted by the Ukrainian MoD with a picture of a the commander with a bandaged arm and wearing a bloodied uniform which appeared to say ‘Russian Army’.
Russia claimed on Friday that more than 160 Ukrainian soldiers had surrendered to Moscow’s troops.
The Russian Ministry of Defence said the troops were of ‘different security structures’, but it was not clear what this meant and the statement did not provide details.
At least 11 of the troops reportedly laid down their weapons during fighting in a city in the country’s south known to Ukrainians as Mykolaiv, and to Russians as Nikolaev.
Among the troops were at least 10 soldiers in Volnovakha in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic who were captured by pro-Russian rebels in the area.
Moscow claimed the soldiers would be ‘returned to their families’ after the situation was ‘stabilised’.
Russia has also claimed strikes launched by its military yesterday had destroyed 74 Ukrainian military ground facilities, 11 airfields, three command posts and 18 radar stations controlling Kyiv’s anti-aircraft batteries.
Later reports claimed Moscow had downed one of Ukraine’s helicopters, five fighter jets and five drone aircraft and destroyed 18 tanks and other armored vehicles, seven flashlight jet systems, 41 units of special military vehicle equipment and five warships.
A Russian plane crashed near Voronezh on Thursday in what is believed to have been a technical failure. All those on board perished – it is unclear how many.
*First published in Daily Mail (UK)/GlobalUpFront
