Ukrainian drone attack on Russian air farms
Ukrainian drone attack on Russian air farms
CNN-The drone attack of the Ukraine on Russian military airfields was Kühner and daring . Above all, however, it was extremely precisely planned and carried out without errors.
kyjiw aimed at exactly where it could make a difference: military planes were damaged or destroyed that Moscow uses to terrorize Ukrainian civilians with air strikes almost every day.
detailed damage balance
The security service of the Ukraine reported that 41 Russian aircraft were met, including strategic bomber and reconnaissance aircraft. However, it is unclear how many of them have been completely out of service.
Justin Bronk, a senior research employee at the Royal United Services Institute in London, described the attack as “an impressive success for the Ukrainian secret services.”
”If even half of the total number of 41 damaged or destroyed aircraft can be confirmed, this will have a significant impact on the ability of the Russian long-distance air trip to maintain the regular large-scale cruise missile attacks against Ukrainian cities and infrastructures and at the same time their nuclear deterrence and patrols against NATO and JAPAN to maintain, ”he wrote in a message.
attacks deep in the Russian area
The attacks were directed against four military airfields deep in the Russian territory. The most distant was the Belaya military airfield in the Irkutsk region, about 4,500 kilometers (2,800 miles) removed from the Ukrainian border.
Other destinations included Olenya airport near Murmansk in the northern Arctic Circle, more than 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) from Ukraine; the Diaghilev airport in the Ryazan Oblast, about 520 kilometers (320 miles) from Ukraine; and Ivanovo Airport, a location for Russian military transport aircraft, which is about 800 kilometers (500 miles) from the border.
visualizations of the SBU, the security service of Ukraine, also showed another military location in the eastern region of Amur. It is unclear whether an attack on this location has failed or canceled.
Russian defense inadequate
The radar systems and air defense in Russia on these bases were not prepared for such an unexpected and deep attack. The only effective way to ward off such an attack would have been the use of heavy machine guns - weapons that Russia has already used against Ukrainian seed roars in the Black Sea.
However, these were either not available or were not quick enough to use the military locations attacked by Ukraine - most likely because Russia had not predicted such an attack.
CNN was able to verify and locate photos and videos of the place of attack, which were recorded near the bases. The Russian Ministry of Defense confirmed in a statement that the attacks that it described as “terrorist attacks” were started out of the airfields.
President Wolodymyr Selenskyj from Ukraine indicated that 117 drones were used during the operation. According to the SBU, the drones of operational in Russia were smuggled and could later be hidden in mobile wooden huts.
a brilliant operation
A video of the attack in the Irkutsk region, which was shared on social media and verified by CNN, shows two drones that fly out of a truck and fly towards the Belaya air base, from which thick, black smoke rises.
Selenskyj said on Sunday that planning the attack took one year, six months and nine days, and praised the security services for this “brilliant” operation.
The Russian authorities have downplayed the attack and claims that the attacks in regions Ivanovo, Ryazan and Amur were traced back, but “several planes” caught fire after attacks in the Murmansk and Irkutsk regions. She added that the fires had now been deleted.
Although the Russian authorities tried to gloss over the attack, several high -ranking Russian military bloggers have expressed their criticism. The renowned Russian military blog Rybar described the attack as a “tragic loss for the entire Russian air fleet” and as a consequence of “criminal neglect”.
The SBU stated that the attacks would have caused damage of an estimated $ 7 billion and that 34 % of the strategic cruise-missile wearers of Russia would have hit the most important air bases-an assertion that CNN cannot verify independently.
The Ukraine said that several TU-95 and TU-22M3 strategic bombers and one of the few remaining A-50 reconnaissance aircraft Russia destroyed. According to an informed source, 27 TU-95, four TU-160, two TU-22M3 and “probably” an A-50 were hit.
The TU-22M3 is the platform for long-distance missile attacks in Russia, which is able to carry out stand-off attacks by firing missiles from the Russian airspace behind the front lines to stay outside of Ukrainian air defense.
with 55 TU-22M3 aircraft and 57 TU-95 aircraft in the fleet at the beginning of the year according to the report “Military Balance 2025” by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the replacement of some of these aircraft for Russia is extremely difficult because they have not been produced for decades.
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