MOSCOW, February 25. /TASS/. A Ukrainian air defense system last night attacked a Ukrainian Sukhoi-27 fighter over Kiev by mistake, a source at the Russian Defense Ministry told TASS.
He stressed that "there have been no missile strikes by Russia’s armed forces against Kiev, whose heroism during Word War II President Vladimir Zelensky has recalled at last. The bright blaze in the sky over the city in the early hours of February 25 and the object subsequent fall on a home has a very different explanation."
"Last night, a Sukhoi-27 fighter of the Ukrainian Air Force was on a patrol mission over Kiev. By mistake one of the Ukrainian air defense systems stationed near Kiev identified it as a target and attacked it with standard weapons," the source said.
The Russian Defense Ministry official said that Zelensky, who has done a great deal over the past few years for the heroization of Ukraine’s Nazi collaborators of those days, did have a point in drawing a parallel with World War II, though.
"The sole difference is the parallel is not with 1941, but with November 1943, when the Red Army liberated Kiev from occupation by Nazi Germany," he said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday morning said that in response to a request from the leaders of Donbass republics he made a decision to conduct a special military operation. He stressed that an occupation of Ukrainian territories was not in Moscow’s plans.
The Defense Ministry said the Russian military were not dealing strikes against Ukrainian cities. Its smart weapons were hitting only military infrastructures. The civilian population is not in danger, the Defense Ministry said.