KYIV. Feb 10 (Interfax) - A Russian Sukhoi Su-25 attack plane was shot down in the Donetsk region on Tuesday morning, the press service for the special task regiment Azov has reported.
This information has not been confirmed by other sources.
"A Sukhoi Su-25 attack plane of the Russian Air Force was shot down this morning. The plane fell near Kyubyshevo," the regiment said in a report posted on the social networking site Vkontakte.
The regiment also says Russian planes have been sighted during the current offensive by Azov in the Mariupol area.
Interfax has no official information from other sources, both in Kyiv and in Moscow, on this matter.
In the meantime, Russian Foreign and Defense Ministry officials denied the presence of Russian troops in Donbas in the past few months. Specifically, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has called the allegations on the presence of Russian troops in southeastern Ukraine unproven. "I say every time: if you say this with such confidence, show facts. But no one can show any facts, or they don't want to," Lavrov said.
Russian Defense Ministry official Igor Konashenkov in late January again denied the allegations by the Ukrainian military that Russian troops are fighting on the side of the militia.
Viktor Muzhenko, the head of the Ukrainian General Staff, said during a meeting with the military attaches of foreign countries accredited in Ukraine in Kyiv in late January: "We are not conducting military action with units of regular Russian troops."