Russian air defense covered its military plane with “friendly fire” (video)

Russian air defense mistook its own plane for a “strange drone” and opened fire.

On the night of May 25, Russian air defenses fired on their own military aircraft during a drone attack near Tver.

As Defense Express reports , information began to spread on Russian social networks about the alleged shooting down of a Tu-160 strategic bomber over Russian territory. However, a video that later appeared refuted this version.

The released footage shows Russian anti-aircraft guns opening fire on a plane over the city of Tver. The silhouette of the aircraft does not match the shape of the Tu-160. It is likely a military transport aircraft of the Tu-134 or Tu-154 type. In particular, the Evergreen Intel Twitter account states that it was a Tu-134AK with the tail number RA-65996, which belongs to the Russian Aerospace Forces and took off from the Migalovo military airfield on the outskirts of Tver.

The incident coincided with a kamikaze drone attack on the region. Local Telegram channels were flooded with reports of drones and videos of them being shot down. It is likely that the Russian air defense mistaken its own plane for a “strange drone” and opened fire.

However, as can be seen from the video, it was not possible to hit it – the aircraft escaped damage.

Russia attacked its own plane

That same evening, according to the Flightradar24 service, about 10 Russian Defense Ministry aircraft took off from Moscow, although OSINT researchers counted even more.

(C)UNIAN 2025