Sloviansk militants have said they managed to shoot down a surveillance aircraft during fighting that still continues near the village of Mykolaivka and Semenivka.
“Fighters from one of our ‘antiaircraft’ battalions have just managed
to shoot down a Ukrainian army surveillance aircraft that was hovering
above the town,” Interfax learned at the militant’s headquarters.
At the moment, the situation in the town is relatively stable, water
is supplied in certain hours, electricity and Internet working as usual,
the source said.
Three militants sustained minor injuries during fight on June 6, the headquarters said.
Meanwhile, according to eyewitnesses cited on Sloviansk’s Twitter
account, the shot-down aircraft is Antonov An-30. “The plane is nose
diving towards Mykolaivka. And is gliding down, its left engine knocked
off,” the statement said.
According to the eyewitnesses cited by the author of the Twitter
post, the aircraft’s pilots ejected and parachuted in a lake area. The
plane crashed near Drobysheve (Krasny Lyman district).
The Twitter post contains a link to a video that shows the aircraft being shot down and its right engine catching fire.
An-30 is a surveillance aircraft used for aerial photography. It was
designed by Antonov Design Bureau in cooperation with Beriev Design
Bureau. An-30 is a modification of An-24 and An-26 and is designed for
aerial photography and aerogeophysical survey.
