A Russian fighter on the way to Ukraine crashes in his country against a civilian building and leaves Putin in evidence

Vladimir Putin has wounded pride. That’s why after the partial destruction of the Kerch bridge, the only one linking Crimea with Russia, began to indiscriminately bomb civilian targets in a hundred Ukrainian cities knowing that this hardly changes their situation on the battlefield.

However, as he continues his campaign of terror, the Russian president has once again exposed himself. This Monday, a Russian Su-34 military aircraft crashed during a training flight into a block of residential buildings in the Russian town of Yeisk, near the Ukrainian border. The impact of the fighter-bomber has left at least 13 dead and 19 wounded. It has also caused a fire of about 2,000 square metersaccording to information from the emergency services collected by the official TASS agency.

[Sólo 6 drones causaron el caos en Kiev: Ucrania derribó 37 de ellos antes del ataque de este lunes]

The accident – caused by the fire of one of the engines during takeoff, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense – is presented as the symbol of a new humiliation of the autocrat in his own home, where criticism against his “special operation” in Ukraine. Without going any further, this weekend, the governor of the Russian region of Belgorod, Vyacheslav Gladkov, reported the impact of a projectile in one of the existing fuel depots in the border town.

Since the invasion began, however, Russia’s president has made a fool of himself on more than one occasion. In early October, for example, formalized the illegal annexation of the four regions occupied in Ukraine in a massive propaganda act in Moscow’s Red Square. He assured that these territories “they would be russians forever“, but only a few hours later, the Ukrainian forces recaptured Liman, one of the cities belonging to those regions.

Moscow tried to hide this humiliating defeat by claiming that its troops had “strategically withdrawn” to prepare a new attack. Of that withdrawal, however, they came to light images of soldiers desperately fleeing and abandoned Russian tanks everywhere.

From Moskva to 73 tanks

The inability to stop the Ukrainian counteroffensive and the loss of numerous strategic locations in record time have meant for Putin a real headache. He had to (partially) acknowledge his failures and hastily mobilize 300,000 Russian reservists to send to the front. Even if that means sending new soldiers to war with little preparation.

[Surovikin bombardea a civiles en su primer día al mando: así será la guerra con el Carnicero de Alepo]

At this point, further twisting would be an even more humiliating blow than the one suffered earlier in the war, when a Ukrainian-launched Neptune missile sank the Moscowflagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet.

Much more even than those 73 tanks and other armored vehicles that were hit in May by Ukrainian artillery while trying to cross the meandering Sviersky Donets River that runs through the Luhansk and Donetsk regions from west to east.