Ukraine Shoots Down Own Drone Over Central Kyiv
The Ukrainian air force claims that one of its own drones that was flying above central Kiev lost control and was shot down.
On Thursday evening, there were explosions for around 15 to 20 minutes as air defense worked to shoot it down near the president’s office.
Andriy Yermak, the chief of staff to the Ukrainian president, first claimed that a hostile drone had been shot down.
However, the air force later acknowledged it was Ukrainian and had been destroyed to avoid “undesirable circumstances”.
In a statement, it claimed that during a planned flight, the Bayraktar TB2 UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle] lost control at 20:00 (17:00 GMT) in the Kyiv region.
It continued by saying that it had decided to shoot it down “since the uncontrolled presence of UAVs in the sky of the capital could lead to undesirable consequences”.
No one was hurt or killed by the drone that fell, it claimed.
The statement continued, “It’s unfortunate, but this is technology, and such occurrences happen. It’s most likely a technical issue; the causes are being determined.
Videos of attempts to shoot the drone down were widely disseminated on social media. When the drone was finally down, there were cheers.
Serhiy Popko, the head of the city’s military administration, reported that a fire was put out in the Solomyanskyi area, west of the city center, building where the drone was shot down.