A Ukrainian Drone Blew Up a Russian Tu-22M Bomber As The Bomber Was Landing
'They know that they are constantly under threat,' the top Ukrainian general said of the bomber crews
A Ukrainian attack drone struck and destroyed a Russian air force Tu-22M bomber as it was landing at its base “a few days ago,” Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, the Ukrainian commander-in-chief, told LB.ua on Wednesday.
It’s possible the Tu-22M in question was the one that a Russian source claimed crashed in Usolsky District, in eastern Russia 2,700 miles from Ukraine, on April 2. It was probably the fifth of the 139-foot, four-person bombers Russia has lost in the 38 months since it widened its war on Ukraine.
But a 2,700-mile deep strike would be, by a wide margin, the deepest Ukrainian strike of the wider war. It’s unclear any of Ukraine’s long-range drones possess the endurance to travel that far. Most Ukrainian strikes range just a few hundred miles. Only a handful have hit targets farther than 1,000 miles away.
The alternative explanation is that a Tu-22M was caught on the ground as attack drones pummeled the air base in Shaikovka, in western Russian 140 miles from Ukraine, on March 31.
Left of boom
The Ukrainian drone operators clearly meant to blow up the base’s stock of six-ton, acid-fueled Kh-22 cruise missiles, which the Tu-22Ms routinely fling at Ukrainian cities.
“As a result of the attack, a technical room for servicing and preparing missiles before launch was destroyed, and another was damaged by shrapnel,” the analysts at CyberBoroshno concluded after scrutinizing satellite imagery. A storage building for Kh-22s was also hit, according to CyberBoroshno.
If the same drones also took out one of Russia’s approximately 60 surviving Tu-22Ms, the March raid might count as one of the must successful of the many Ukrainian attacks on Russian bomber bases.
Struggling to intercept Russian cruise missiles close to their targets owing to a shortage of long-range air-defenses, Ukrainian forces are increasingly aiming “left of the boom”—and going after the bombers and missiles at bases inside Russia.
A triple-tap series of attacks between January and March targeting Engels air base, in southern Russia 400 miles from Ukraine, destroyed a huge stock of bomber-launched cruise missiles costing nearly $1 billion.
“They know that they are constantly under threat from our strikes,” Syrsky said of the Russian bomber crews.
Read more:
Russia's Kh-22 Missiles Are 6-Ton Tubes Full of Acid. Ukraine Is Flinging Explosive Drones at Them.
Struggling to intercept Russian cruise missiles close to their targets owing to a shortage of long-range air-defenses, Ukrainian forces are aiming “left of the boom”—and going after the Russian air force’s bombers, and their missiles, at bases inside Russia.