Russian drone strike kills 5 and injures at least 7 on passenger bus in Ukraine

On September 16, Ukraine's General Staff announced that their forces had targeted and struck a Russian Su-24 bomber at the Saky air base in occupied Crimea. The General Staff has not yet provided a full assessment of the damage caused by the Ukrainian strike. The Su-24 is a twin-engine tactical bomber aircraft that is deployed by both Ukrainian and Russian forces.

In addition to the Su-24 bomber, Ukrainian forces carried out multiple strikes on September 15 and 16. They targeted a Russian drone launch and storage site near the city of Donetsk, as well as three ground control stations for Russian drones located in Staromlynivka, Pokrovsk, and Pokrovske across Donetsk Oblast and Zaporizhzhia Oblast. Furthermore, Ukrainian forces destroyed an ammunition depot in Luhansk Oblast, along with fuel and lubricant storage bases in Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia oblasts.

The Saky air base has been a frequent target for Ukrainian forces, with the Omega special forces unit claiming to have previously struck a Russian Su-24M frontline bomber at the site on July 16. The Su-24M is an upgraded version of the Soviet-designed Sukhoi Su-24, a supersonic frontline bomber that Russia employs to launch strike missions against ground targets during its ongoing full-scale invasion of Ukraine.