A Su-34 plane was shot down by a Ukrainian pensioner with a rifle

A pensioner in Ukraine has been decorated after allegedly shooting down a Russian Su-34 “Fullback” plane with a shotgun.

Valeri Fedorovich opened fire on the ground attack aircraft in the area of Chernihiv, a town still frequently bombed by Putin’s forces. The low-flying aircraft was so badly damaged, according to authorities, that it crashed. The pensioner then went and collected the wreckage of the plane, which he keeps in his garage.

Fedorovich was named a hero by the Ukrainian press and was photographed with the decoration he received from the graziers. It is not known what happened to the two pilots of the $40 million plane.

The Su-34 is one of the most modern aircraft in Russian armament, and the shooting down of it with a fighter only further calls into question the quality of Russian-made weapons. The aircraft joined Moscow’s air force in 2014 and has been used including in the war in Syria.

Normally, aircraft executing ground attack missions are able to withstand hits from small arms weapons.

This is not the first Russian military equipment to be destroyed by a civilian. Earlier in the war a drone was destroyed by a pensioner who hit it from the balcony of her apartment with a jar of pickled cucumbers.

At the same time, on February 27, another old man, Valentin Didkovski, took out a Russian tanker in the Bucea area using a grenade launcher.