Russia has transferred numerous strategic bombers to more distant airbases throughout the country following this month’s extensive Ukrainian drone assault on Moscow’s military aircraft, as indicated by satellite imagery.
On June 1, Ukrainian intelligence services executed a significant drone offensive targeting Russian military airbases, reaching thousands of kilometers from the frontline. President Volodymyr Zelensky described this operation as their longest-range mission to date. Dubbed “Operation Spider’s Web,” the attack aimed at several airbases within Russia, including locations in the Murmansk, Irkutsk, Ryazan, and Ivanovo regions.
Analysis by the OSINT research group AviVector reveals that all Tu-160 bombers previously located at the Belaya airbase in Irkutsk and the Olenya airbase in Murmansk were no longer present by early June.
Among these bombers, two were moved to Anadyr in the Chukotka region, three to Yelizovo in Kamchatka, and another three to the Borisoglebskoye airbase in Tatarstan.
Additionally, Tu-22M3 and Tu-95MS aircraft were also relocated from Murmansk to bases in Tatarstan as well as in the Amur and Saratov regions, and to Mozdok in North Ossetia, a site that had not been actively utilized by the Russian military in recent years.
According to U.S. officials quoted by The New York Times, the strikes on June 1 led to the destruction of at least six Tu-95 strategic bombers, four Tu-22M aircraft, and several A-50 airborne early warning planes.
Ukrainian sources reported that the total of Russian Aerospace Forces aircraft either destroyed or damaged stood at 41, a number later corroborated by a senior NATO official to The Moscow Times.
Justin Bronk, an aviation specialist at the RUSI think tank in London, noted that the satellite images from the Anadyr base could indicate that Moscow is attempting to mitigate the threat of further drone assaults.
As a result of the success of the Ukrainian attacks, it is anticipated that Russia will increasingly rotate its bombers among various bases, according to Greg Bagwell, a former high-ranking commander of the British Royal Air Force, who spoke to Newsweek.
While Western authorities speculate that Russia might be gearing up for a larger retaliatory strike against Kyiv, its immediate response has been marked by escalated missile and drone attacks throughout Ukraine.
