He stated this during a telethon.
"We confirm that this aircraft belonged to the Russian Federation and that it was destroyed by their own forces. They were on the alert, they were on combat alert," Pletenchuk said.
According to the Ukrainian Navy, the fighter pilot was rescued, but the aircraft was "effectively destroyed".
Commenting on the reasons why the Russian forces shot down their own aircraft, Pletenchuk said that the human factor could have been at work in this case: "one of the operators simply shot down his own plane because he really wanted to get a medal for shooting down the plane, so he did not bother to find out whether it was his own or someone else's."