A Russian fighter jet crashed into the sea off the Crimean port of Sevastopol on Thursday, the regional governor has said.
Footage published on the social media platform Telegram shows the Su-35 consumed by flames as it spirals through the air towards the Black Sea.
The jet plummets for at least 15 seconds before it hits the surface of the water and explodes into a fireball. Smoke billows out from the crash site after the flames subside.
Mikhail Razvozhayev, the Russian-installed governor of the region, said the pilot had safely ejected from the plane and had been picked up by rescuers a short distance from the shore.
Civilian objects were not harmed in the crash, he added. It is unclear what caused the pilot to lose control of the fighter jet.
Rybar, a prominent pro-Russian military blogger, noted that the crash took place “at a considerable distance” from the front line.
“Therefore, this incident is likely due to either a technical malfunction or another episode of ‘friendly fire,’” they added in a Telegram post.
Anton Gerashchenko, a former adviser to Ukraine’s minister of internal affairs, suggested the jet may have been shot down by Russian air defences. However, there is no official confirmation that this is the case.
Crimea is key objective for Kyiv
“A military plane fell into the sea…. Civilian objects were not damaged,” Mr Razvozhayev wrote in a post on the social media platform.
‘The pilot] was picked up by rescuers from the Sevastopol Rescue Service at a distance of 200m from the shore,” he continued. “His life is not in danger.”
Moscow and Kyiv have repeatedly clashed over Crimea, which Moscow annexed from its neighbour eight years before it invaded the rest of Ukraine in February 2022.
Kyiv has made regaining the peninsula one of the key objectives of its military campaign, and through drone and missile strikes has forced much of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet to retreat from Sevastopol.
In July, a Russian Su-25 jet crashed into the Sea of Azov in the southwestern region of Krasnodar Krai while the pilot was on a training flight.
The pilot managed to eject from the plane but landed in the sea, dying hours later despite emergency services bringing him to a local hospital.
Officials in Russia’s Southern Military District suggested the incident may have been caused by an engine malfunction.
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