Russian Jets Just Keep Crashing

A Mikoyan MiG-31 fighter jet crashed shortly after take off in the latest incident to befall a Russian aircraft crew since the start of the war in Ukraine.

Russian media outlets reported that the plane crashed in a forest near the village of Alekseevka, around 40 miles from Vladivostok in Russia's far east, on Friday.

The crew ejected, but their condition is not yet known and no casualties have been reported.

The press service of the Eastern Military District, where Vladivostok is located, said in a Telegram post the cause of the crash may be a "technical malfunction" and that the plane crashed in a "deserted place," causing no damage on the ground.

There have been a number of non-combat aviation losses since the start of Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. In October, independent media outlet The Bell reported that at least ten aircraft had crashed since the start of the war.

On October 18, a Sukhoi Su-34 bomber crashed into an apartment complex in the city of Yeysk in the southern Krasnodar region, killing 15 people. Also that month, a Sukhoi Su-30 fighter jet crashed into a residential building in the Siberian city of Irkutsk, killing at least two.

Closer to the war in Ukraine, video widely shared on social media showed the moment a Mig-31 crashed soon after takeoff from the Belbek airfield in Sevastopol, with one local report saying that a pilot had not ejected in time.

Also in October, video went viral of a pilot reportedly ejecting from a Russian Sukhoi Su-25 jet before it crashed in an unknown area. In June, an Ilyushin Il-76 military transport plane crashed and caught fire near the city of Ryazan after attempting an emergency landing due to an engine malfunction on a training flight.

At the time, the British defense ministry said Russia's air force was struggling to support the invasion of Ukraine with sufficient aircrew.

The defense officials also said Moscow was relying on retired personnel who are now working as contractors for the private military company Wagner to conduct close air support missions.

"I think the issue is with the maintenance rather than the pilots but then again the pilots may not have had sufficient training either," Glen Grant, a military analyst with the Baltic Security Foundation, told Newsweek. "Before the war started, the amount of training the pilots were getting was minimal."

"Of course there are [Russian] pilots who are good because there are guys who have been in Syria," Grant said, but he believed a lot had been shot down in the war in Ukraine. "So the number of skilled ones they have got is not so many anymore."

"The main challenge is that [Russian forces] have a cavalier attitude to maintenance," he said, adding there had been "a degradation over the whole system" within the Russian forces. "They are not good at making changes to produce quick training programs."

Newsweek has contacted the Russian defense ministry for comment.