Satellite images and other available data confirm that Russia lost at least 10 strategic bombers in a Ukrainian drone attack on Russian airfields on 1 June.
OSINT analyst Chris Biggers published satellite images of the Belaya airfield in Russia’s Irkutsk region following the Ukrainian drone strike on the morning of 2 June. They were taken using synthetic aperture radar (SAR), which allows to “see” objects on the ground through clouds.
The photos show that four Tu-95 strategic bombers and the same number of Tu-22s were destroyed at the airbase.
There are no such pictures from the other attacked airbase, Olenya in the Murmansk region, yet, but in combination with the drone videos published by the Ukrainian Security Service, one can summarise the unprecedented Ukrainian strike on Russian military airfields. According to calculations by social network user X Intelshizo, the Belaya and Olenya airfields were destroyed by no less than:
- seven Tu-95 strategic bombers (another one damaged)
- four Tu-22 strategic bombers
- one An-22 military transport aircraft.
Ukraine’s Security Service earlier said that the attack on airfields in several Russian regions on 1 June had hit “34% of strategic cruise missile carriers at Russia’s main airfields” – that is, 43 aircraft. There is no independent confirmation of this data.
Only two bases – in the Murmansk and Irkutsk regions of the Russian Federation – are reliably known to have damaged or destroyed aircraft. In the Ivanovo, Ryazan and Amur regions, which were also mentioned in the SBU reports, the attacks were, according to the Russian Defence Ministry, repelled.
In the Murmansk and Irkutsk regions, drones that attacked airbases flew from cargo vans. Numerous videos taken by eyewitnesses have been published.
Containers with drones that attacked the Murmansk and Irkutsk regions on 1 June could have been assembled in a warehouse in Chelyabinsk. This is reported by the Baza and Mash telegram channels with reference to OSINT experts. They studied the photos published by Ukrainian sources and found a similar composition on the Sverdlovsk tract in Chelyabinsk.
On 2 June, police and special services officers came to this warehouse in Chelyabinsk. Chelyabinsk website 74.ru and Russian “war correspondents” write that the tenants of the warehouse have been detained. Telegram channels Mash and Baza claim that the landlords of the premises have also been detained. The information has not been officially confirmed.
Earlier, the President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky said that those involved in the operation left the territory of Russia before it began.
Zelensky confirmed that the attack on strategic airfields of Russia with the help of drones was a special operation of the SBU. According to the president, the operation was prepared for a year and a half and 117 drones were used in it.
The Russian Defence Ministry called what happened a “terrorist attack”. Many military bloggers write that such an attack theoretically meets the criterion of the Russian nuclear doctrine, according to which Russia can use nuclear weapons in response to attacks on strategic nuclear force facilities. However, there has been no response from the Russian leadership to the attacks so far.