Ukrainian military expert Sergei Grabsky praised the victory of the Ukrainian air defense forces: before Christmas, they destroyed five Russian fighters - four Su-34 and one Su-30SM, giving the Ukrainians a special gift. 
He partially revealed the details of this "hunting" game: Ukraine needs a lot of preparation, but Russia still needs to make a fatal mistake,Grabsky said in a joint live broadcast with independent Russian journalist Igor Yakovenko. "Success is no accident. It's the result of a very hard work. It's like a hunter stalking his prey. We have been paying attention to these target aircraft for a long time. Not only did we choose our targets, but we also tracked and mastered their movements," he said. Russia must now deeply regret the "strict observance of a regular pattern of operations", which gave the Ukrainian army the opportunity to play a "cruel joke" with the Russian army. Thanks to this exploit, it was possible to shoot down three Su-34s in one fell swoop on December 22. 
We know when the plane takes off, when it arrives at the launch zone, from what height, from what position, and we program that into an algorithm. Therefore, it is possible to catch such a rather expensive "prey". It takes weeks, if not months, of patient and meticulous work," he stressed. The situation is similar for the other Su-34 and Su-30SM, which were shot down in Mariupol on December 24, and Ukraine knows where and when the launch will be carried out, and the camouflaged "technical complex (which should refer to the Patriot air defense system)" has been deployed to the forefront in advance. "What cannot be disclosed now is the specific type of ammunition used, which is the latest generation for the destruction of such targets as the Su-34 **. I can only reveal now that the range and technical indicators of these ammunition differ from conventional ammunition, "said Grabsky. 
In these ambushes, we used both Soviet and NATO standards. In a word, Ukraine integrated these ** into a single complex, and the results of real combat turned out to be very effective. "The intensity of the bombing of Russian aviation, especially on the left bank of the Dnieper, as a result of the successive shooting down of these aircraft, has been significantly reduced," he summed up the effect.