Satellite photos analyzed by the Associated Press On Wednesday, seven destroyed bombers show on the asphalt on a Russian air base in Eastern Siberia, one of the goals that Ukraine said with drones in one of the most daring secret operations of the war.
The photos of Planet Labs PBC show plane wreck and scorched areas on the Belaya Air Base, an important installation for the Russian bomber of Russia. At least three TU-95 bombers and four TU-22ms appear to be destroyed in the images.
The planes were parked on a apron next to a runway surrounded by grassland. Other aircraft at the base seem to be intact.
Ukraine said that 41 Russian war aircraft, including strategic bombers and other species of combat aircraft, were destroyed or damaged in Sunday's operation, of which civil servants said it was planned for 18 months. The attack yielded a heavy blow to the Russian Air Force and his Military Prestige.
The Russian Ministry of Defense said that the attack set several war aircraft on fire in air bases in the Irkutsk region and the Moermansk region in the north, but the fires were extinguished. It also said that Ukraine also tried to hit two air bases in western Russia, as well as another in the Amur region of the Russian Far East, but those attacks were repelled.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has not commented on the issue.
The TU-95 is a four-engine turboprop surface that can fly intercontinental missions and was designed in the 1950s to match the American B-52 bomber.
The Tupolev TU-22m is a Sweep-Wing Two Motors Supersonic Bomber.
Russia used the heavy aircraft in the total war, which started in February 2022, to launch waves of cruise rocket attacks in Ukraine.
For decades, long-distance bombers have been part of the Soviet and Russian nuclear triad that also includes land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles and atomically driven submarines with ICBMs. The strategic bombers have flown regular patrols around the world with the nuclear power of Moscow.
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