Ukraine Behind Attacks On Russian Air Bases That Destroyed Bombers

Ukrainian officials have recently been hinting at developments in the country’s grinding war with Russia and attacks on two Russian airbases hosting long-range bombers indicate that Kyiv has already produced weapons that can respond to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion by bringing the war to Moscow and his home city of St. Petersburg, Luke Harding reported for The Guardian.

Photo Insert: A Tu-95 bomber at Engels Air Force Base, Russia

Video from Russian social media showed a blast at the Engels-2 airbase in Russia’s Saratov region. Another happened at the Dyagilevo military airbase near Ryazan, a city just 150 miles from Moscow and the Kremlin.

According to Russian state media, three people at the base were killed and five injured when a fuel truck went up in flames. At least two planes were reportedly damaged but reports from Reuters, the Associated Press (AP) and Ukrinform indicate that at two Tu-95 bombers were destroyed and four bombers were heavily damaged. A previous attack on a base hosting Tu-95 and Tu-160 bombers destroyed four Russian planes.

Pavel Polityuk and Oleksandr Kozhukhar reported for Reuters on Dec. 6 that there also has been speculation that Kyiv has developed a strike drone with an astonishing 1,000-kilometer range. Late last month, a Ukrainian serviceman said the weapon had already been used against the Russian military. If accurate, this means much of European Russia is now in reach.

And that the asymmetric advantage Moscow has enjoyed this year – the ability to launch cruise missiles safely from deep inside Russia itself – is under threat. Israeli satellite imaging company ImageSat International shared images it said showed burn marks and objects near a Tu-22M aircraft at the Dyagilevo airbase.

The Russian defense ministry called the drone strikes a terrorist act aimed at disrupting its long-range aviation. Ukrtaine has slammed Russia for launching a full-scale terrorist invasion on its soil.

“We attack where they are weak and defend where they are strong,” Andriy Zagorodnyuk, Ukraine’s former defense minister said. He described Ukraine’s military tactics as essentially “opportunistic.” Russia by contrast, he continued, was waging an all-out “unidirectional” assault to capture the town of Bakhmut, in the eastern Donbas region, despite huge losses of Russian soldiers and equipment.

Most military observers expect the frontlines of the war to be largely static over the next few freezing months, following spectacular Ukrainian counter-attacks during the autumn, in which Kyiv recaptured almost all of Kharkiv oblast in the north-east and liberated the city of Kherson in the south, together with territory on the right bank of the Dnipro River.

There could be further offensives before spring, Zagorodnyuk said.

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