Ukraine Shoots Down Four Russian Helicopters in 18 Minutes—Air Force

Ukrainian Air Force officials claimed on social media that Ukraine managed to shoot down four Russian attack helicopters in quick succession on Wednesday.

Ukraine's Air Force said on Telegram that its anti-aircraft missile units destroyed the aircraft, which were probably Ka-52s, within 18 minutes, between 8:40 a.m. and 8:58 a.m. local time and added the aircraft were likely "providing fire support to the ground occupation troops in the southern direction."

According to the report, the helicopters were shot down in southern Ukraine, although the air force would not specify a location.

"According to preliminary data, one helicopter fell on the territory freed from militants, the rest, behind the front line," the Ukrainian Air Force's Telegram statement said, according to a translation.

The translated post also said that troops engaged two additional helicopters, "so there is a high probability that the number of confirmed downed helicopters will increase."

Ukraine's claims were partially confirmed by pro-Russian sources on the Telegram messaging app and Newsweek has reached out to the Russian defense ministry for comment on the Ukrainian claims.

This week, Ukraine stepped up its call to the West to provide greater missile defense capabilities following Russia's attacks on a number of cities on Monday, including Kyiv.

The attacks, which have been condemned internationally for including civilian targets, have spurred a crowdfunding appeal to purchase kamikaze drones, an effort that raised $9.6 million in 24 hours.

Serhiy Prytula, a Ukrainian television personality who organized the crowdfunding drive, said that 50 Ram II drones will be bought with the money that was raised, along with three control stations and that further munitions would be purchased in the near future. "They wanted to scare us but we united even more," he said, according to a report in The Guardian.

Also on Wednesday, Pavlo Kyrylenk, the governor of Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region, said at least seven people were killed and eight injured in a Russian strike on a market in the town of Avdiivka.

"There is no military logic in such shelling," he said, "only an unbridled desire to kill as many of our people as possible and intimidate others.

Meanwhile, Russia said it had detained eight people in connection with an explosion on the Kerch Bridge linking Russia to Crimea on October 8 for which Putin has blamed Kyiv.

While Russian officials have said that the bridge explosion was due to a truck bomb, a report by Molfar, a global open-source intelligence community, said a drone supplied to the Ukrainian military from the U.S. could have been the cause.