“Crew dies”
Russian jet crashes in Kaliningrad enclave
08/12/2023, 4:10 p.m
A Russian military jet crashed during a training flight over the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, which lies between Lithuania and Poland. According to Moscow, the crew died in the process. Technical problems are cited as the reason.
According to official information, a Russian fighter plane crashed during a training flight in the Russian Baltic Sea exclave of Kaliningrad. “The crew of the plane died,” the Russian Defense Ministry said, according to the Interfax agency. It is not yet clear how many occupants were involved. The exact crash site was also not mentioned. The Sukhoi Su-30 machine was flying over an uninhabited area when technical problems arose, it said.
Russia has been waging a war of aggression against neighboring Ukraine for more than 17 months. However, Russian fighter jets have crashed on their own territory several times in the past due to technical problems. The most serious incident of this kind occurred in October 2022, when a Su-34 fighter-bomber crashed into a residential building in the southern Russian city of Yeysk. More than a dozen people were killed, including several children. Some residents of the house that caught fire died when they jumped from the upper floors to escape from the flames.
Another incident occurred just about a month ago: in the border region between Russia and Ukraine, a Russian fighter jet crashed over the Azov Sea in mid-July. According to initial findings, the engine of the Sukhoi Su-25 machine failed, the authorities of the southern Russian region of Krasnodar said. The pilot died, wrote the head of the district administration, Roman Bublik, on his Telegram channel.