Ukraine downs 60 drones, 2 missiles, Russia destroys 4 drones

The Ukrainian air defense shot down 60 out of 74 drones and two out of five missiles launched by Russia overnight, the Ukrainian Air Force said on Thursday, reported Xinhua.

The targets were destroyed over nine regions in eastern, central, southern and northern Ukraine, it said in a post on Telegram.

Meanwhile, Russian forces have destroyed four Ukrainian drones and three unmanned surface vehicles near Sevastopol, Sevastopol city governor Mikhail Razvozhayev said Thursday.

"The Black Sea Fleet and air defense forces repelled a Ukrainian attack in Sevastopol," Razvozhayev said in a Telegram post, adding that according to preliminary information, the Russian military destroyed the targets over the water at a significant distance from the shore.

He said that no civilian targets in the city were damaged.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Wednesday that the Ukrainian troops have taken further areas in Russia's Kursk region.

"The Commander-in-Chief (Oleksandr Syrskyi) also reported on our operation in the Kursk region. We continue to expand the territory under our control in the designated areas near the border of Ukraine," Zelensky said in his daily video address on Wednesday evening.

Meanwhile, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces on Thursday confirmed that an F16 fighter jet crashed during fighting in Ukraine.

The F16 fighters participating in the combat had destroyed four missiles, and one of the aircraft lost contact while approaching the next target, the General Staff said in a statement on Telegram.

"As it turned out later, the plane crashed, and the pilot died," the statement said, without specifying the date of the incident.

The special commission of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry is working on the scene to determine the cause of the crash.

Earlier in the day, the Ukrainian Air Force said pilot Oleksii Mes was killed on Aug. 26 while repelling a Russian attack on Ukraine.

The Air Force did not specify whether Mes was an F16 pilot.

In early August, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that the first batch of F16s had arrived in Ukraine.