THIS is the dramatic moment a Ukrainian fighter jet turns a Russian drone into a fireball with a mid-air missile.
Incredible footage from the heroic MiG-29 pilot’s cockpit shows him blasting away a Shahed-136 kamikaze UAV as the two met thousands of feet up in the sky.
The moment the R-73 air-to-air missile was launched from the Ukrainian fighter jetTwitter
The moment the drone erupted into a fireball mid-air
The fiery missile hurled towards the Russian Shahed-136 kamikaze UAVTwitter
The Russian kamikaze drone was left in a cloud of smokeTwitter
The clip, shared on social media, shows the moment the Ukrainian fighter pilot spots the drone whizzing towards him.
Within seconds the quick-thinking soldier aims his R-73 air-to-air missile at the Iranian-made UAV before taking fire.
The missile is sent hurtling through the sky with a fiery force and a trail left behind it.
Four seconds after it was launched the projectile strikes the drone and makes it explode.
The fireball soon turns into a large cloud of billowing smoke as the MiG-29 flies past the downed wreckage.
It is unclear where the precise hit took place.
Ukraine and the West say Vladimir Putin‘s men have been using Shahed-136 drones in the conflict since the autumn of 2022.
The UAVs are said to cost just £17,800 each and have an 8ft wingspan.
It comes as more Russian loses have been recorded in the past few days as the cross border fighting continues.
Dramatic footage from Friday shows the moment a Russian counterattack was foiled by Ukraine with a tiny portion of Putin’s tanks withstanding the crushing defeat.
Just four out of 17 armoured vehicles dispatched to the frontline in Donetsk escaped the kamikaze drone onslaught.
Video shows how Ukraine‘s impressive assault drones ruthlessly blitzed Russian troops and tanks.
Other footage shows Russian soldiers trying to escape in the nearby village of Kostyantynivka as Ukrainian fighter pilots eliminate them.
Russia has been desperately trying to regain the upper hand in Ukraine after Zelensky’s forces pushed through into enemy territory on August 6.
Some hundreds of kilometres away from Donetsk in Kursk, Kyiv launched an assault across the border from the Sumy region.
Ukraine’s drone campaign has tirelessly chipped away at Putin’s forces and kit for some two and a half years.
It has successfully held back enemy forces, obliterated vital oil stores and military supplies, blown up key bridges, destroyed naval ships and aircraft and cut down infantry.
Some hundreds of kilometres away from Donetsk in Kursk, Kyiv launched an assault across the border from the Sumy region.
Ukraine’s drone campaign has tirelessly chipped away at Putin’s forces and kit for some two and a half years.
It has successfully held back enemy forces, obliterated vital oil stores and military supplies, blown up key bridges, destroyed naval ships and aircraft and cut down infantry.
Just days ago more footage showed them destroying a Russian truck and bunker with detonation cords painted in classic Ukrainian blue and yellow.
Kyiv claims to control 100 settlements in Kusrk and more than 1,000 square kilometres of enemy soil.
It is also attempting a second surge into Russia in the Belgorod region.
Kyiv’s forces are attacking border checkpoints as Putin’s soldiers desperately fight back to defend their soil, reports say.
Belgorod governor Vyacheslav Gladkov has said the Ukrainians are trying to “break through the border”.
Hundreds of Russian prisoners of war have also been captured in the daring operation.
The Sun’s Defence Editor Jerome Starkey joined Ukrainian troops in Kursk on Thursday, speaking to Russian citizens who had no idea of the true cost of war until the conflict came crashing home.
The Sun’s Jerome Starkey inside Russia
BY Jerome Starkey, Defence Editor in Russia
The Sun stepped into sovereign Russia – despite Kremlin threats to kill or convict us – to speak to ordinary Russians left stranded by their soldiers’ humiliating retreat.
Bomb blasts echoed over ruined buildings as Olga, 23, a taxi cab dispatcher, said: “I didn’t think about the war at all. I was just working constantly.
“Home, job, home. I didn’t think about anything beyond my personal life.”
All that changed on August 6 when Ukraine launched a surprise attack from neighbouring Sumy province and captured 1,300 square kilometres in Russia’s worst defeat on home soil since the end of World War Two.
Ukraine’s President Zelensky claimed the blitz was part of a master plan to help end the war.
Bomb blasts echoed over ruined buildings as Olga, 23, a taxi cab dispatcher, said: “I didn’t think about the war at all. I was just working constantly.
“Home, job, home. I didn’t think about anything beyond my personal life.”
All that changed on August 6 when Ukraine launched a surprise attack from neighbouring Sumy province and captured 1,300 square kilometres in Russia’s worst defeat on home soil since the end of World War Two.
Ukraine’s President Zelensky claimed the blitz was part of a master plan to help end the war.
And he stressed that ordinary Russians must “feel” the effects of the war unleashed by tyrant Putin.
Olga said her mother and brother fled their hometown of Sudzha, the largest Russian town now under Ukrainian control.
But Olga was cut off by fighting and unable to cross town to reach them before they escaped.
We met her in a temporary shelter where Ukrainian troops were providing food and beds for civilians left behind.
She added: “I stayed because I couldn’t leave. There was no evacuation.”
A statue of Lenin in Sudzha’s main square had been severely maimed – only part of his trunk appeared to remain on the pedestal.
Behind it, the town hall’s grand facade lay shattered by artillery holes.
A blue and yellow Ukrainian flag fluttered from a makeshift flagpole.
Graffiti on the cobbles mocked Russia’s defenders for fleeing.
It said: “Russians, learn how to fight. Your conscripts are rotting in forests.”
The Russian soldiers defending Sudzha were a mixture of border guards, conscripts and Chechens from the Akhmat battalion.
One of the Sudzha’s residents cursed them for fleeing so quickly
They said: “Our defence was so bad. There weren’t any soldiers. That’s why we are here.”
Around 600 civilians still live in Sudzha from a pre-war population of 5,000, Ukrainian soldiers estimated.
They said it was hard to tell precisely as many were sheltering underground.
While we were there a man came in who had spent the last three weeks in a cellar.
The troops said it was the first time they had seen him.
Pensioner Valentina, 76, another resident in the shelter, said she had tried to forget the war since she moved to Sudzha five years ago – from Donetsk in eastern Ukraine.
She left to escape the fighting that was unleashed in 2014 when Russian-backed separatists broke away from Kyiv’s control.
Speaking from her dormitory bed, she said: “I never thought this war would be so big that it would come to such a little place like this.
“What is there to fight for here?”
Russian tyrant Vladimir Putin said Ukraine wanted Russian territory to use as a bargaining chip in any future peace talks.
Kyiv claimed the land was a buffer zone to limit Russian attacks.
Zelensky has also stressed the importance of capturing 600 prisoners of war to swap for captured Ukrainians.
The assault has boosted morale in Ukraine and changed the narrative of the conflict after months of grinding losses in eastern Donbas.
Black smoke billows from a burning Russian tank in a separate Ukrainian blast
A Russian shelter being blown up in a Ukrainian drone strike
AFPA residential building on fire after a missile attack in Kharkiv[/caption]