Ukrainian troops have dramatically downed a Russian fighter jet over eastern Ukraine as an oil depot was set ablaze by a drone strike more than 100 miles away in Russia.

The Soviet-designed Su-25, nicknamed “Frogfoot” by Nato, was brought down over Kramatorsk, Donetsk, as it fired on Ukrainian troops.

In footage released by Ukraine’s 28th Brigade, it was seen bursting into flames in mid-air while flying alongside another aircraft and then crashing into the ground.

In the southern Russian region of Rostov, one of Vladimir Putin’s oil depots was also set on fire after Kyiv launched a cross-border drone attack.

Three Russian tanks were also reported to have been burning at the site after two drones fell on the area overnight.

“There are no casualties,” the governor, Vasily Golubev, said on the Telegram messaging app. “Firefighters are extinguishing the fire.”

On Wednesday, Moscow vowed to carry on fighting in Ukraine and dismissed Volodymyr Zelensky’s suggestion that Kyiv was submitting a plan to Washington outlining how to end the war.

Mr Zelensky previously said Russia’s invasion would eventually end in dialogue, but that Kyiv had to be in a strong position, and that he would present a plan to US president Joe Biden and his two potential successors.

“This is not the first time that we have heard such statements from representatives of the Kyiv regime,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.

“We are aware of the nature of this Kyiv regime. We are continuing our special military operation and will achieve all of our goals.”

The skirmishes come as Moscow continues to grapple with Ukraine’s shock cross-border incursion into Russian territory, with Kyiv’s troops claiming to have seized around 500 square miles of territory.

Kyiv’s top military commander Oleksandr Syrskyi added that 100 settlements in Russia’s Kursk region had been seized and 594 prisoners of war taken.

In response, Russia has been conducting its largest air attack since the war began in February 2022, with more than 200 drones and missiles launched at Ukraine over the last few days.

On Tuesday, two people were killed when a hotel was “wiped out” in the central Ukraine city of Kryvyi Rih, and two others died in drone attacks on the city of Zaporizhzhia in southern Ukraine, officials said.

Marcel Plichta, a former analyst at the US Department of Defense, said the timing of the strikes was not a coincidence. “These strikes usually come after some kind of Ukrainian success story,” he told The Independent.

“They are part of an information war. It is an attempt by the Kremlin to get back a narrative that shows Russia as the big strong actor in this war, and Ukraine as weak and vulnerable.”

Ukrainian president Mr Zelensky vowed to take revenge. “We will undoubtedly respond to Russia for this and all other attacks. Crimes against humanity cannot go unpunished,” he said.

Mr Zelensky also said that Western-supplied F-16 fighter jets had been used to shoot down some of the Russian missiles launched during the attack.

He said that the aircraft, donated by Denmark earlier this year, had produced a “very good result”, but urged Western countries to provide more of them.

Meanwhile, Moscow’s officials claimed that Ukrainian troops had also attempted another cross-border attack into Belgorod, a region of Russia that borders Kursk.

Belgorod’s regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov, said the situation on the border with Ukraine was “difficult but under control” after claiming that hundreds of Ukrainian troops had attacked at least one checkpoint.

The claim has not been independently verified, and Kyiv has not commented. A Russian military blog said there had been no major attempts to pierce the border.

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Ukraine’s F-16 jets intercept Russian missiles in apparent first

Russia fired dozens of missiles and drones across Ukraine for a second day on Tuesday, including some that Ukraine’s president said were shot down by Western-supplied F-16 fighter jets before they reached their targets.

The onslaught killed at least five people, destroying a hotel, homes and residential buildings as well as critical infrastructure in multiple Ukrainian regions. Kyiv and other cities had power outages in sweltering heat.

As it often does in statements after Russian bombing raids, Ukraine’s military listed the Russian regions and occupied territories where the weapons were launched. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other top officials have called repeatedly for the U.S. to lift restrictions and let Ukraine strike deep inside Russia to hit military infrastructure responsible for the war.

″(The allies) try not to speak with me about it. But I keep raising this topic. Generally, that’s it. The Olympics are over, but the ping-pong continues,” Zelenskyy said.

In comments addressing the apparent first use by Ukraine of the F-16s to shoot down a missile, Zelenskyy thanked Ukraine's supporters for them but said there were too few, and too few pilots trained to fly them.

Among the Russian regions listed as a source of Tuesday’s attack was Kursk, where the head of the Ukrainian army said his troops have gained control of nearly 500 square miles since their surprise incursion three weeks ago. That’s roughly the size of Los Angeles.

Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi also said Ukraine has captured 594 Russian prisoners in the operation, which he said was intended to draw Russia’s military away from the fighting in Ukraine. His claims could not be independently confirmed.

The Kursk operation, the largest incursion into Russia since World War II, has forced some 130,000 residents to evacuate their homes. Russia has sent reinforcements into the region, but it was not clear to what extent the movements might be weakening Russia’s positions in Ukrainian territory.

Fighting in the region has raised concerns about dangers to the Kursk nuclear power plant, said International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi, who visited it Tuesday. He said in a post on X the situation was “serious” and called any attack on a nuclear plant unacceptable.

“There is now a danger of a nuclear incident here,” Grossi said. “Today I was told about several cases of drone attacks on the territory, on the plant’s facilities. At the plant I saw traces of these attacks.”

But the plant now is operating “in a mode very close to normal,” he said.

The Russian Defense Ministry asserted Tuesday that Ukraine has suffered heavy casualties in Kursk — some 6,600 troops killed or injured — and that more than 70 tanks have been destroyed along with scores of armored vehicles. Those figures could not be independently confirmed.

The head of the Ukrainian army's claim of territorial control came hours after the second consecutive barrage of nighttime air and missile attacks from Russia.

Five people were reported killed and 16 injured in the attacks, which Zelenskyy said included 81 drones as well as cruise and ballistic missiles.

In the Kyiv region, which struggled with blackouts after Monday's onslaught that targeted energy facilities throughout the country, five air alerts were called during the night. The regional administration said air defenses destroyed all the drones and missiles but falling debris set off forest fires.

After Monday’s barrage across Ukraine of more than 100 missiles and a similar number of drones, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said “the energy infrastructure has once again become the target of Russian terrorists” and urged Ukraine’s allies to provide it with long-range weapons and permission to use them on targets inside Russia.

President Joe Biden called Monday's Russian attack on energy infrastructure “outrageous” and said he had “reprioritized U.S. air defense exports so they are sent to Ukraine first.” He also said the U.S. was “surging energy equipment to Ukraine to repair its systems and strengthen the resilience of Ukraine’s energy grid.”

The Russian Defense Ministry said the attacks used “long-range precision air- and sea-based weapons and strike drones against critical energy infrastructure facilities that support the operation of Ukraine’s military-industrial complex. All designated targets were hit.”

Russian officials reported four Ukrainian missiles were shot down over the Kursk region.

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