Shot down Russian bomber: Kyiv

Kyiv, April 19

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Ukraine’s air force claimed on Friday it shot down a Russian strategic bomber, but Moscow officials said the plane crashed in a sparsely populated area due to a malfunction after a combat mission.

8 killed in russian strikes

Russian missiles struck cities in the central Dnipro region of Ukraine, killing eight persons, including a 14-year-old girl and 8-year-old boy, and injuring 28, local officials said.

Neither claim could be independently verified. Previous Ukrainian claims of shooting down Russian warplanes during their more than two-year war have met with silence or denials from Moscow.

Meanwhile, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy repeated Kyiv officials’ almost daily appeals for more Western air defense systems, again drawing a parallel with how Israel blunted a recent Iranian attack. Russia’s air force is vastly more powerful than Ukraine’s, but sophisticated missile systems provided by Kyiv’s Western partners are a major threat to Russian aviation. — AP