Russian Helicopter Crashes in Crimea

Russia lost one of its Ka-27 naval helicopters in Crimea early on Wednesday, Ukraine has said, while Moscow said one of its Mi-24 attack helicopters had crashed after an equipment failure.

"Minus Russian Ka-27 in Crimea," Dmytro Pletenchuk, a spokesperson for Ukraine's navy, said in a brief statement posted to Facebook. Ukraine's Defense Ministry shared a similar statement to social media on Wednesday.

The Ka-27, also referred to as Helix, is a naval helicopter, and variants of the aircraft can be used for anti-submarine warfare or search-and-rescue missions.

Russia's Defense Ministry said that one of its Mi-24 attack helicopters had crashed close to the western coast of Crimea at around 6 a.m. Moscow time, according to Russian state media. Preliminary details suggest the helicopter crashed after an unspecified equipment failure, state news agency RIA Novosti reported.

A search-and-rescue operation was being carried out, according to Russian state news agency Tass.

A prominent Russian military blogger said an Mi-24 had crashed west of Cape Tarkhankut, saying the crew had been killed. Cape Tarkhankut is northwest of the Crimean port city of Sevastopol, where Russia partly bases its Black Sea naval fleet.

Newsweek has reached out to the Ukrainian navy for comment.

Figures posted by Ukraine's military on Wednesday did not account for the loss of a Russian helicopter but said Moscow had lost a total of 325 helicopters since February 2022. Newsweek could not independently verify this figure.

Russia's helicopters have been a target of Ukraine's efforts, but Kyiv more frequently reports Russian jet and fixed-wing aircraft losses. "Long time no see destroyed [R]ussian helicopters," the Ukrainian Defense Ministry wrote on Wednesday.

Back in June 2023, Kyiv said Russian forces in Ukraine had lost "five times more helicopters" than during Moscow's operations in Chechnya. Russia lost 60 combat and transport helicopters in fighting in the Russian republic of Chechnya throughout the 1990s and early 2000s following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine's military said last summer.

In October 2023, Ukraine debuted its U.S-provided ATACMS, long-range missiles also known as the Army Tactical Missile System, by destroying a slew of Russian helicopters in Russian-controlled Ukraine.

Ukraine's special forces said at the time that their fighters had destroyed nine Russian helicopters in strikes on airbases in the Zaporizhzhia city of Berdiansk and Luhansk City. Both sites were far behind the front lines in eastern and southern Ukraine, in Russian-occupied territory.

In the wake of the strikes, open-source intelligence reports later suggested that Ukraine may have damaged up to 21 Russian helicopters.

Update 4/10/2024, 5:50 a.m. ET: This article was updated with additional information.

Correction 4/10/2024, 6:50 a.m. ET: This article was updated and the headline changed to clarify that the Russian helicopter had crashed and had not been shot down, as previously indicated.