Amid ongoing hostilities between Russian and Ukrainian forces, the latter’s most potent air defence system the S-300 has gained its first kills. Following reports on March 3 that eight Romanian military personnel had been killed, with a single MiG-21 fighter and IAR 330-Puma helicopter crashing killing both the pilot of the first and seven crew of the second, it was reported that Ukrainian S-300 batteries were responsible for shooting down one and possibly NATO aircraft in an incident of friendly fire. This was hardly the first incident where Romania inadvertently became involved in the Ukrainian conflict, with a Ukrainian Su-27 pilot fleeing to the country on the first day of the war with his fighter and being intercepted by Romanian Air Force F-16s. Questionable training in the Ukrainian Air Force, with a recent history of multiple accidents including reported friendly fire downing a Su-27 over Kiev in the war’s opening hours, have made the possible downing of two Romanian aircraft far from an isolated incident. Perhaps the most notable precedent was the downing by an older Ukrainian S-200 system of Siberia Airlines Flight 1812 over the Black Sea in October 2001, which killed all 78 civilians onboard.
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The first machine was an Israeli-upgraded MiG-21 LanceR, the second one was a SAR helicopter searching for the downed pilot.