The soldiers of the 28th Separate Mechanized Brigade shot down a Russian Su-25 attack aircraft on the outskirts of Toretsk.

The 28th Brigade posted the video on its official channel.

It is reported that the plane had been shot down on the outskirts of Toretsk by a combined anti-aircraft missile unit of the 28th separate mechanized brigade and the 57th separate battalion of the TRO using Igla MANPADS.

The published video does not show any catastrophic damage to the plane before it crashed. It is likely that a missile with a heat-seeking warhead hit the area of hot engines and disabled them. This led to the downing of the plane.

Attack on the evacuation team

After the downing of the plane, a pair of Russian helicopters, Mi-8 and Mi-24/35, were sent to the site of the Russian pilot’s ejection to evacuate him. However, the operators of the 28th Brigade’s FPV drones prevented the evacuation by attacking the helicopters with FPV drones.

In total, 4 FPV drones were used, two of which attacked Mi-8s on the ground, and two more, with a remote-controlled warhead, attacked the helicopters in the air.

Although, judging by the video, the drones failed to cause critical damage to the helicopters, which were able to leave the scene on their own. However, they managed to disrupt the evacuation of the pilot.

The observers from the channel “War in Ukraine. Loss of equipment.” determined that the plane had gone down near the village of Zaitseve, Donetsk region.

According to the OSINT resource ORYX, which keeps track of open photo and video materials, during the full-scale Russian-Ukrainian war, not including this downing, the Russians have already lost 35 Su-25 attack aircraft.

This Su-25 attack aircraft was not the first to be downed by anti-aircraft gunners from the 28th Brigade. Thus, in August 2024, the occupiers lost a Su-25 in the area of responsibility of the 28th Separate Mechanized Brigade named after the Knights of the Winter Campaign.

The invaders use Su-25 attack aircraft to strike the positions of the Ukrainian Defense Forces with unguided aircraft missiles, from the air. This forces them to come close to the front line, where they fall within the range of Ukrainian air defense. However, because they fly at extremely low altitudes, they are mostly hit by man-portable air defense systems.