A drone appears to have destroyed a supersonic Russian bomber on an airfield hundreds of kilometres from Ukraine, British military intelligence has said, the latest in a string of successful assaults on prestige infrastructure and military hardware.
These attacks, far beyond the frontlines, are powerful propaganda for Ukraine, though Kyiv rarely claims them directly. Hits on key assets, which are meant to be heavily guarded by the latest technology, is highly damaging to morale in Russia, even if they do not change the balance of forces on the battlefield.
The latest attack was “highly likely” to have destroyed a Tu-22M3 Backfire bomber jet at the Soltsy-2 airbase, 400 miles (650km) from the border with Ukraine, on 19 August, British military intelligence said in a regular update on the war.
Social media images showed an aircraft that resembled the Tu-22M3 in flames on a runway. The planes have been used regularly in campaigns that killed civilians in Ukraine, including dropping unguided missiles on Mariupol during an intense bombing campaign at the start of Russia’s invasion.
In January this year, a Tu-22M3 was probably used to launch a heavy anti-ship missile at a block of flats in Dnipro. “This is at least the third successful attack on long-range aviation airfields, again raising questions about Russia’s ability to protect strategic locations deep inside the country,” the statement said.
Adding to Russian humiliation, the attack may have been launched inside the country. Russia’s defence ministry said on Saturday that an aircraft in Novgorod region, where the Soltsy-2 airbase is located, was hit by a drone, causing a fire that damaged one plane.
The “copter-style” drone mentioned by Moscow was unlikely to have the range to fly there from outside the country, British military intelligence said. “This adds weight to the assessment that some UAV [drone] attacks against Russian military targets are being launched from inside Russian territory.”
Previous high-profile targets included the Moskva cruiser, the flagship of the Black Sea fleet, which was sunk last year, and the Kerch bridge linking Crimea to Russia, a personal project of Vladimir Putin that has been damaged twice.
Ukrainian drone strikes deep inside Russia have increased in recent months, with Moscow a regular target. On Monday, one disrupted flights in and out of the capital on Monday, and injured two people when it was shot down by Russian air defences.
There was no official comment from the government on the destruction of the jet, with authorities wary of commenting on sophisticated sabotage operations or antagonising western allies who are more openly comfortable with supporting defensive military operations.
Senior officials often make barely veiled suggestions of links to the attacks, however. Andriy Yusov, the deputy head of Ukraine’s military intelligence, mocked Russian attempts to downplay the destruction of the jet and other drone attacks.
“It was probably just some big pigeons that dropped something on those Tu-22M3 aircraft,” he said on national TV. “In Moscow, there are no explosions, their airports and flights are probably operating according to schedule, there are no changes. In general, everything is going according to plan.”
The New Voice of Ukraine reported that Ukrainian drones had damaged five planes in recent days.
Citing Ukrainian intelligence, known as the GUR, it reported that the Tu-22M3 was “destroyed” on Saturday and that two other aircraft were damaged. Two days later, on Monday, two bomber planes in Kaluga were damaged, “as a result of an attack by drones controlled by GUR saboteurs”.
At least two people were injured on Monday when parts of a Ukrainian drone destroyed by Russian air defences fell on a house in the Moscow region, the regional governor said. Arrivals and departures from Moscow’s four main airports – Vnukovo, Domodedovo, Sheremetyevo and Zhukovsky – were restricted, disrupting 45 passenger planes and two cargo planes, the Russian aviation authority said.
The governor of Kaluga region, south of Moscow, said a drone attack had also been repelled there.