MOSCOW. Nov 1 (Interfax-AVN) - The Russian Air Force command has categorically denied Western media reports of Russian SU-27 Flanker warplanes delivering bomb strikes on Afghan territory.
"This information is absolutely not true," Air Force spokesman Alexander Drobyshevsky told Interfax on Thursday.
"The Command of the Armed Forces and the Russian defense minister personally have declared many times that the Russian army is not involved in the hostilities in Afghanistan in any way. In this context the publication of the said news item is either a planned provocation or can be attributed to sensationalism," he said.
Moreover, "such reports are pure misinformation for the simple reason that Russian planes of the SU-27 model are not based in that area," Drobyshevsky said.
Some Western media outlets reported that several SU-27 aircraft without identification marks hit Taliban advanced positions in the area of the Ai Khanum river.
They concluded that the aircraft belonged to Russia because along the river there is a road that will be used for delivering Russian humanitarian cargoes to the positions of the Northern Alliance.