The first Russian air loss was a Su-25 ground-attack aircraft flown by Lieutenant Colonel Oleg Terebunsky of the 368th Attack Aviation Regiment (Budyonovsk Air Base), shot down over the territory of South Ossetia near the Zarsk pass, between Dzhava and Tskhinvali. He was hit by a MANPAD missile fired by South Ossetian militia near 6.00 P.M on August, 8. The wreckage of the plane was filmed by a crew from the Russian state television channel Vesti and shown on television as a «downed Georgian plane»1. The plane was probably mistakenly identified and brought down by «friendly fire» because it was one of the very first Russian sorties, and the wreckage was found before South Ossetia was informed that Russian aviation was involved in the conflict. Moreover, five Georgian Su-25 had bombed the area nearby just a few hours earlier, so the Ossetians had grounds to suppose they might return. 2 In any case, Lieutenant Colonel Terebunsky managed to eject himself in time and was quickly located and evacuated by Russian forces.