Russia 'accidentally shoots down own spy plane'

Russian forces have accidentally shot down their own £275 million spy plane over occupied Ukraine, pro-Kremlin military bloggers have said. Vladimir Romanov said that the Beriev A-50 Soviet-built plane crashed near the Sea of Azov after it was hit by a missile fired from Mariupol, the Ukrainian city that Russian forces captured in 2022. “The enemy has nothing to do with it again. The launches were from the Mariupol area,” he told his 140,000 followers. “After being hit by an air defence missile (not fired by the enemy), the A-50 broke into two parts.” Mr Romanov also uploaded two videos of the alleged shooting down of the A-50. The first video shows air defence missiles targeting a plane and the second of the alleged crash site with a woman commentator describing a “huge explosion”. This is the second A-50 spy plane that Russia has lost in the space of just over a month. In January, Ukraine said that it had shot down an A-50 over the Sea of Azov. Although Ukrainian commanders claimed that their forces had shot down the A-50 on Friday evening, Fighterbomer, another Russian Telegram channel with close ties to Russia’s air force, said that it was too far from the frontline to have been struck by Ukrainian air defences. Subscribe to The Telegraph with our special offer: just £1 for 3 months. Start your free trial now: Get the latest headlines: and are websites of The Telegraph, the UK's best-selling quality daily newspaper providing news and analysis on UK and world events, business, sport, lifestyle and culture.