Russia is struggling to fend off Ukraine’s daring drone attacks

Reports suggested that a second such jet may also have been hit in the raid. Andriy Yusov, a spokesman for the Ukrainian intelligence agency, said on Sunday: “There is preliminary information that there could be two Su-57 aircraft affected.” The successful hit, the latest in a Ukrainian campaign targeting Russian fighter jets, as well as airfields and other military facilities hundreds of miles over the border, demonstrates that Russia is still unable to take full control of its airspace, experts say, and having to take hard decisions around where to station its “stretched” air defences. The strike also raises questions about how Russia is failing to look after its most prized military assets. The attack, and a number of other recent drone strikes, show that Russia is getting “stretched” trying to counter Ukraine, Matthew Savill, director of military sciences at the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi), told i. “There will be questions about whether [Russia] will need to move more air defences around, and why Russia was not able to defend [the jet],” he said. There will be questions about Russia’s resources and why it did not station the jet in shelters that would have prevented the attack, he added.