At the same time, the heads of western Russian provinces, Belgorod, Bryansk and Kursk oblasts, regularly announced supposed artillery shelling and attacks against the regions.
The fighters were supposed to launch a missile strike on Ukraine's Chernihiv Oblast, while the helicopters were to "insure" the aircrews were safe and to make sure the Russian soldiers did not get shot down by the Ukrainian forces.
Ukrainian Telegram channels suggested the aircraft could have been shot down by friendly fire from Russian air defense forces.
"[10] President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko said that Belarusian troops were put on high alert due to events in Russia's Bryansk Oblast, where "four aircraft were shot down".
[11][12] The Wall Street Journal correspondent Yaroslav Trofimov suggested this incident constituted the "worst day for the Russian military aviation since the first week of the war, when Moscow assumed that it had destroyed Ukrainian air defences".