Videos posted on Russian social media on Saturday showed a helicopter apparently being shot down over Russia’s Bryansk region, bordering Ukraine.
The state news agency TASS cited an emergency services official as saying preliminary information indicated the helicopter’s engine had caught fire before the crash near Klintsy, which is around 40 km (25 miles) from the border.
Alternate explanations of what took down the helicopter
However, a video posted on the Russian pro-war Telegram channel Voyenniy Osvedomitel, which has around half a million followers, showed a helicopter high in the sky exploding, being thrown off course and then plunging earthwards in flames.
Russian President Vladimir Putin disembarks a helicopter as he visits the headquarters of the ”Dnieper” army group in the Kherson Region, Russian-controlled Ukraine, in this still image taken from handout video released on April 18, 2023. (credit: KREMLIN.RU/HANDOUT VIA REUTERS)Comments accompanying the video, which Reuters could not immediately verify, said the craft, a Russian-built Mi-8 transport helicopter, had been shot down by a missile.
Other images posted by the channel showed wreckage in an agricultural field.
The Mi-8 has a wide range of military and civilian uses.
There was no immediate comment from Ukraine.
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