It was around 11.30 pm on a Saturday night, I switched on my social media and was viewing some articles on Threads when I saw breaking news. Ukraine had launched a massive attack on Russian military assets, there was vision of smoke billowing from Russian airfields but details were scarce.

What had transpired was Ukraine had launched a bunch of drones from sea containers driven into place by Russian truck drivers. There was a false top on the containers that popped open at the specified time with drone swarms attacking Russian bombers parked at airfields at multiple Russian locations. Attacked were the Tu-95 Bear bombers, these twin counter-rotating propeller aircraft are the backbone of the Russian nuclear deterrence.

The Tu-95 aircraft are used to launch glide bombs, and hypersonic missiles against targets in Ukraine from the relative safety of Russian borders. Russia does not have air superiority and cannot engage in cluster bombing of Ukrainian cities with gravity bombs. Instead, Russian bomber aircraft have to remain in Russian airspace where they are out of range of Ukrainian missile defences.

What Russia has to deploy is their relatively expensive Kh-101 and Kh-555 missiles against Ukraine. The 3M-54 Kalibr cruise missiles are launched from the Black Sea. The glide bombs are relatively inexpensive glide bomb kits fitted to standard bombs giving these bombs an extended range of around 60 – 70 km. Fighting a war is an expensive business, forcing Russia onto using more expensive weapons puts extra strain on Russian finances, the economy is already under pressure with high interest rates and a large cohort of Russian workers now living outside of the borders of Russia due to the fear of being conscripted to fight on the frontlines of the war.

Not only did Russia lose the irreplaceable Tu-95 bombers, the Tu-160 supersonic bomber was also targeted and destroyed. The Tu-160 is the Russian equivalent of the American B-1 bomber, the Tu-160 has a range of 12,300 kilometers, a speed of Mach 2.05 and can carry a payload of 45,00 kg of ordnance. The Tu-160 was used to launch the Kh-101 cruise missile into Ukraine. 

This is a serious weapon deployed against Ukraine, this is the first time the Tu-160 has been deployed in combat and a serious concern to Ukraine. Now Ukraine has taken out a whole bunch of Russian air power, Putin’s generals are now moving Russian bombers further east to protect their assets allowing Ukraine to dominate Russia again.