Don't rush to believe the claims yet, so far i can only see clear irrefutable visual evidence of one Mi-8 and one Sukhoi.
It's been confirmed. Russia lost 2x MI8 helicopters, 1x SU-34, 1x SU-35
Allegedly, the helicopters were jamming Ukrainian radio signals. One was shot down with a Stinger MANPAD. Another allegedly just crashed ? (hard to believe).
The SU-34 & SU-35 being in Russian airspace believed that they were safe & were not expecting to be attacked in their own airspace.
Allegedly a Ukrainian MIG-29, with upgraded radar, avionics, using AIM-120 missiles, flew low & then abruptly targeted the Russian jets with AWACS intelligence provided by NATO. So the MIG-29 didn't use its own radar, but data link via AWACS. So the MIG-29 didn't lock onto the SU-34/35 with its radar, therefore they had no clue they were being targeted. I'm surprised though, shouldn't Russian AWACS have alerted them ?
Just like with how Russia is currently able to jam the HIMARS missiles with electronic warfare, or sometimes they block Starlink, it's a game of cat & mouse. This was the worst day for the Russian airforce, probably during the entire war. The only worse incidents were when Ukraine used upgraded Soviet drones to target several bombers deep inside Russian territory.
Anyways in the big picture, Russia has shot down a large number of Ukrainian aircraft during this war & destroyed dozens of Ukrainian aircraft on the ground. The game of cat & mouse will continue and now Russia is promising massive retaliation against Ukraine.
In other news, the Ukrainian counter offensive in Bakhmut hasn't really yielded much results. They've gained maybe 2-4 SQ KM & Russia claims that in Bakhmut area 500 Ukrainian soldiers were killed. I can't show the videos but there are several videos showing piles & piles of Ukrainian corpses.
Also Lancet drones continue to target Ukrainian assets. Today another Ukrainian M777 & various other assets were destroyed.
Ukraine is now building cope structures to prevent drone strikes on their self propelled artillery & APCS. They use 2X4s & chicken wire to build them. They might work against quadcopter drones dropping munitions but they cannot stop drones like the Lancet that can hit targets at a speed of 300 km / hr, not to mention it can strike from various angles.