After actions such as the invasion of the Kursk border region, sinking the flagship of the Russian Navy, the Moskva, destroying several oil refineries and flying a section of the bridge that connects the Crimean Peninsula with Russia, now they have also attacked the pride of the Kremlin aviation.
Ukrainian command groups infiltrated the enemy territory and launched dozens of armed drones against four air bases on Sunday June 1, in which part of the Russian Fleet of Strategic Bombers is parked.
“Russia suffered significant, justified and completely deserved losses,” said the president of Ukraine, Volodimir Zelenski, who said that the operation carried out for his intelligence services “will undoubtedly end in the history books.”
kyiv sources, Russian bloggers supporters of the Kremlin and independent experts report the total or partial destruction of several airplanes. And although they differ in the number of affected ships, they all agree that it is a hard blow to military aviation, which will see their combat capacity reduced “significantly”.
About the objectives
A rain of armed drones fell on the areas of Belaya, in the eastern province of Irkutsk (Siberia); in Olenyya, in the northern Múrmansk region, near the border with Norway; and in those of Dyagilevo and Ivánovo, located in the center of the country.
Some videos disseminated by the SBU, the Ukrainian intelligence service, show how, in broad daylight, the huge airplanes, which were parked on the landing tracks of the airfields, begin to explode suddenly.
The Ukrainian president said that 40 devices were destroyed, which if true would mean that one third or more of the Russian fleet has been unused.
From satellite images and videos, the Russian service of the BBC counted between 11 and 12 damaged aircraft.
Some specialized media and experts encrypt between 90 and 120 the number of strategic bombers that Russia possesses.
Among the neutralized aircraft are the Túpolev 95 (TU-95) and 22m3. However, from Kyiv they also claim to have destroyed a Beriev A-50, a tracking and intelligence plane, and at least two Tu-160.
What is the importance of these devices? The TU-95 are huge aircraft that were put into operation in 1952 by the former Soviet Union, with the purpose of serving as strategic bombers; that is, to carry large amounts of pumps and missiles at long distances and high heights.
Nicknamed as the bear by the members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), this plane model is part of the “nuclear triad” of Russia, is read on its manufacturer’s website.
Although it is extremely noisy, as its engines are turboherices, it can travel at 900 kilometers per hour, which makes it the fastest aircraft of its class.
Analysts question the ability of this obsolete device to get out of Russian airspace in combat missions without being demolished by an enemy.
However, the Kremlin ordered Túpolev to submit the devices to work that allow them to keep them operational until 2040, it is stated on the website of the Russian aerospace firm.
Only a few days ago, ten of these aircraft were used by Moscow to launch cruise missiles, with the capacity to travel 3,500 kilometers away in an hour, against objectives in different areas of Ukraine.
The huge aircraft have been adapted to take up to eight rockets.
In addition to the bear
Other destroyed devices were some of the TU-22m3 in service. This is a supersonic birreactor designed in the 1970s by the extinct USSR. According to the Tupolev page, in 2018 one of these aircraft was totally modernized.
Kyiv also says he damaged a Beriev A-50, a recognition and intelligence plane; and at least two Tu-160, known with the nickname of White Swans.
If the latter was confirmed, it would be a hard blow to Russian aviation, because these supersonic aircraft are the largest and most powerful within the group of Russian strategic bombers.
However, of the airplanes, which came into operation in mid -1980, just over twenty were built and it is estimated that only 15 are currently in operation.
Túpolev, on its website, says that in 2015 it resumed its manufacture and that in 2018 the first one flew.
“The Russian aerospace forces have lost not only two of their most rare planes, but two true unicorns of the pack,” wrote Oleksandr Kovalenko, a Ukrainian military analyst.
Irreplaceable losses
“With the destruction, visually confirmed, of about eight TU-95 bombers, a TU-22m3 and several other aircraft, probably including some other TU-95 and an A-50U, this is a resounding success for Ukrainian intelligence services,” the expert expert in Defense issues Justin Bronk told BBC.
The member of the Royal United Kingdom Institute of the United Kingdom (Rusi) recalled that the bulk of the devices affected by the unpublished attack date from the Soviet era, so its replacement is something difficult for Moscow.
“The TU-95 has not occurred in more than 30 years and the production/modernization of TU-160 has been giving a very limited scale, so replenishing losses will be a great challenge,” he explained.
And to finish he added: “The TU-22m3 that Russia uses to launch quasi ballistic missiles to Ukraine either has occurred since the 1990s and at least two had already been lost since 2022”.
This version is supported by the Institute for United States War Studies (ISW), which described the destroyed aircraft as “impossible to replace”.
“Russia no longer produces the chassis for Tu-95 and TU-22 bombers (…) this is a real disaster,” reads the ISW report, in which blogger Butusov Plus, close to Kremlin, is cited.
The consequences
Whatever the definitive balance of Ukrainian attacks, experts assume that the high Russian commanders must rethink the performance of strategic bombers.
“This will have a significant impact on the capacity of the long -range Russian forces,” Bronk said.
“It is difficult that they can execute their regular cruise missile attacks against Ukrainian cities and infrastructure and at the same time perform their nuclear deterrence patrols and signaling against NATO (to the ocones) and Japan (to the east),” he added.
“The fleet has been subject to an intense workload during the war,” he finished.
A vision shared by the ISW, from where they assumed that Moscow will stop using their strategic bombers and resort to other apparatus of its fleet.
“It is likely that Russia will resort to Sukhoi combat aircraft, suggesting that you are worried about the shortage of strategic bombers,” said the Center for Studies.
However, until now Moscow had avoided using these devices more intensely, because being smaller and having a lower reach, they must enter Ukrainian territory and face their anti -aircraft defenses to carry out their missions.
The bombers, meanwhile, can launch their missiles from within the Russian territory.
But not only military aviation capabilities have been affected by the Ukrainian attack, but also the image of the Armed Forces and the Russian government.
Despite censorship and fear, there are few within Russia who describe as a new “failure” of military leadership what happened on Sunday.
Some of the attacks, such as the one registered against the Belaya Base, occurred more than 4 thousand kilometers away from the border with Ukraine.
“This is a hard blow and reveals serious mistakes in Russian intelligence,” Rybar wrote, a telegram account near the Russian army.
The more bonnet was the Russian deputy Andrei Gurulev, who described as “failure” what happened.
“There are serious doubts about how they got there [los comandos ucranianos]why the airfields were not protected and who allowed this to happen. A thorough investigation must be carried out, ”said the legislator, who is a retired Lieutenant and was vice as a vice as the military districts of the country.
“One assumes that those bases [atacadas] They are among the most highly protected points in Russia, ”said Peter Dickinson, editor of the magazine Business Ukraine.
The analyst assumed that the events have triggered the alarms in the Russian government, because “suggests that Ukraine has capacities to do more things than in Kremlin would have imagined.”
