Ukrainian Scouts Were In Their Foxholes Near Bakhmut When A Russian Bomber Came Crashing Down

A Ukrainian army reconnaissance battalion was directly below when, on the night of Dec. 2, allied forces around Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine shot down the 62nd Russian jet—a twin-engine, supersonic Sukhoi Su-24 bomber.

A recon scout from the Skala Battalion recalled the shoot-down and its grizzly aftermath in a thread on Twitter on Dec. 5. The thread is a window into the brutal air battle over Bakhmut.

Russian forces for months have been trying, and failing, to capture Bakhmut—this despite the town having little military value. Befuddled analysts, struggling to understand the Russians’ obsession with Bakhmut, have proposed motivations that are more political than practical.

Maybe Russian-allied mercenaries from The Wagner Group are fighting for Bakhmut to prove they can succeed where regular Russian troops fail. Maybe the pro-Russian separatist forces in the area view Bakhmut as a symbol of separatist identity. Maybe the Kremlin just craves a victory, even a meaningless one.

In any event, Russian air force fighters and bombers—some flown by regular air force pilots, others crewed by Wagner mercs—relentlessly have bombed Bakhmut and the Ukrainian battalions in and around the town.

The Skala Battalion believed that one Russian plane in particular—the Su-24 with the registration number RF-93798—was prowling over its sector of the Bakhmut front. “For three days [before Dec. 2], this plane’s been circling the war zone and terrorizing military and civilians,” the Skala scout wrote.

“When such a plane flies by, it’s really scary, because everyone knows what powerful bombs the bomber is equipped with,” they added.

Around 9:00 P.M. on the night of Dec. 2, Ukrainian troops—reportedly belonging to a paramilitary border-patrol unit—shot down RF-93798.

“We were sitting at observation positions in the dugouts [and] heard the sound of a plane,” the recon trooper wrote. “Then, the explosion.”

“We didn’t get what happened. The wood was burning; our plate carriers, sleeping bags, bags were damaged.” The following morning, the Skala Battalion fighters emerged from their dugouts and inspected the destruction all around them.

As it crashed to the ground, the Su-24—the ninth of the type the Russians have lost in 10 months of fighting—carved a fiery swathe through 1,500 feet of forest canopy.

The plane was in pieces. The two crew lay dead in the wreckage. “There was a pilot who was not completely burned,” the Skala fighter wrote. “He looked bad—dressed in work clothes, no valuables. According to assumptions, he could be the co-pilot. We haven’t identified him.”

The other crew member, presumably the bomber’s pilot, apparently was badly burned. But the Skala Battalion recovered his helmet and personal effects and tentatively identified him as 47-year-old “Redkin Alexey Alexandrovich.” The recon troopers even found what they suspect is Alexandrovich’s social-media account.

The Su-24 was carrying a heavy load when it crashed. The Skala Battalion counted 10 440-pound bombs—and called in sappers to disable them. “We are lucky that none of the bombs detonated.”

The recon troopers surely hope their luck holds. The Battle of Bakhmut has been raging for months without much territory changing hands. The Russians and their mercenary and separatist allies have lost hundreds, perhaps thousands, of troops in failed assaults on the town—but show no sign of giving up.