Vladimir Putin’s military is “only second best, even in Russia”, a top Ukrainian commander boasted yesterday – as Kiev continued to make major advances into enemy territory.

Lt. Col. Vano Nadiradze, of the Ukrainian special forces, said more than 2,000 prisoners of war have been taken since the daring incursion into Russia’s Kursk region last week.

Yesterday, a £30m Russian Sukhoi Su-34 bomber was shot down and airfields left “destroyed” by Ukraine’s biggest series of drone strikes since the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Colonel Nadiradze told the Daily Mail how sophisticated radar jamming systems helped “dupe and thwart” poorly organized Russian forces in Kursk, allowing Ukraine to seize swathes of land.

“We have more than 2,000 Russian prisoners so far and they are not just conscripts, these are competent fighters, including FSB forces,” he said last night.

“This operation was two months in the making, with extensive planning and reconnaissance work to make the first operation as successful as possible. Everything was carefully planned, down to the smallest detail – and remained completely secret.

“Our anti-radar systems worked wonders. Akhmat (a special forces unit commanded by Chechen warlord Ramzan Kadyrov) was tasked with monitoring these territories, but we tricked and completely nullified them.’

He added that Ukrainian forces have fortified their positions, up to 30 miles behind enemy lines, with deep trenches.

And in the few skirmishes they have had with Russian resistance, casualties are 10-1 in Ukraine’s favor, he claimed.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said last night that Ukraine’s troops had “advanced well” and “achieved our strategic goal”.

Troops are now within striking distance of several Russian ballistic missile bases, and hundreds more Ukrainian fighters continue to pour into Kursk and the nearby Belgorod region.

Colonel Nadiradze said: “You can already see the scale of our success in Russia – the hysteria among the Russian military experts and bloggers, the fear on Putin’s face on Russian TV.”

He said the breach has had several “massive benefits”.

It has eased pressure on Sumy and Kharkiv in northern Ukraine, as Russia had been using Kirsk as a launch pad for artillery bombardment of those regions.

It has eased pressure on Donetsk in southern Ukraine, which Colonel Nadiradze said was “becoming critical”, as Russia has been forced to withdraw five convoys from there to defend its own border.

He added: ‘The Russians made a big mistake, because none of these convoys reached Kursk intact. Along the way, our drones and rockets did an absolute toll on them.’ It has also given Ukraine a major bargaining chip in any future peace negotiations.

Colonel Nadiradze, a Georgian conscript who has been awarded Ukraine’s highest award, the Hero of Ukraine Medal, said: ‘We have shown our friends in the West how vulnerable Russia is and how it will back down when you stand up to it.

“We have shown the world that the Russian army, once thought to be the second best in the world, is actually only second best even in Russia.” Yesterday, satellite images confirmed that trenches have been built in Kursk with heavy machinery.

President Zelensky has said that Ukraine now controls 74 settlements and 400 square kilometers of land in Kursk.

Last night he hailed Ukraine’s “good progress” and renewed his appeal to Western allies for powerful long-range weapons.

He said: “The more the Russian military presence in the border area is destroyed, the closer our country will be to peace and real security.”

Russia has struggled to contain the incursion since Kiev’s forces broke through the border on Tuesday. Kremlin politician Maria Butina last night accused the West of “poking the bear” by helping Ukraine.