MOSCOW, July 5. /TASS/. Over the entire period of Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine, Russian air defenses shot down more than 550 planes, 180 helicopters and 27,000 unmanned aerial vehicles, Russian Air and Missile Defense Forces Commander Lt. Gen. Andrey Semyonov said.
"The battlefield and point air defense of the Russian military has shown itself to be up to the task during large-scale combat operations in the zone of the special military operation. <…> In all cases, the Russian air defense demonstrates high results and also accumulates invaluable experience," Semyonov, who is also deputy commander-in-chief of the Russian Aerospace Forces, said in his article published by the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper.
In his words, air defense crews parry all sorts of threats from the air and destroy enemy air attack vehicles of various classes "under the constant threat of enemy fire strikes aimed directly at air defense positions.".