The Ukrainian attack on the Russian Air Force is much more severe than you think

Kiev not only got a historic victory, which will be remembered forever as a turning point in the modern war. Its future effect on Russian offensive and nuclear capacity is devastating.

Beyond the psychological coup and a comparable historical milestone in its audacity to the best missions of World War II, the SPIDERWEB OPERATION Executed by Ukraine on June 1, 2025, it triggered irreversible strategic consequences that will affect Russian aviation for decades.

The first information about the Ukrainian attack realized they would have been.

According to data confirmed by the Ukrainian Security and Defense Council, at least Thirteen nuclear bombers They were destroyed in four Russian air bases: Olenya (Murmansk Region), Be Belaya (Irkutsk), Dyagilevo (Ryazan) and Ivanovo.

These devices – TU-95ms, TU-22m3, TU-160 And the Radar A-50 plane-are actually unsubstiturable assets For Moscow: neither can be repaired nor there is a possible alternative that can take its place, says the.

On Oluna baseVerified images show two nuclear bombers Tu-95ms ‘bear-h’ reduced to charred skeletons. These giants turbo propelle, designed in the fifty but modernized to launch kh-101 missiles, represent the Core of Russian attacks against Ukraine. Each carries eight cruise missiles with 400 kilograms explosive warheads.

In Belaya, 4,000 kilometers from the border Ukrainian, the destruction was more serious: Three Tu-95ms and Four Supersonic Bombings Tu-22m3 ‘Backfire-C’ now lie inraoperatively. This last model, a key to kh-22 missile attacks, is no longer manufactured in 1993.

Two nuclear supersonic bombers Tu-160 ‘Blackjack’-evaluated at 682 million euros per unit-suffered severe damage in Be Belaya. Russia has only sixteen operating units (or had) and produces new to a slow pace: 3 in 4 years, according to the latest data. And none is operational yet.

Lastly, an A-50 ‘Mainstay’ radar planeessential for coordinating attacks (as in the operation that recently gave one of India in air combat), was also hit in Ivanovo. Before the attack, Russia had only seven operational.

These losses are quite serious for Vladimir Putin’s air forces. THE Replacement of these aircraft is totally unfeasible.

You . Reactivating your production lines would require overcoming three obstacles: recovering dispersed technical plans after the USSR falls, rebuilding obsolete component supply chains (such as Kuznetsov NK-12 engines) and allocating over 18.2 billion euros just so that the factory will work again.

Russia has been with aircraft for decades – Exposed to snow, acid rain and withdrawal of pieces – with an irreversible structural corrosion. “A tu-95 oxidized in a hangar of Kazakhstan Not worth money: it is radioactive scrap“Says the Russian aviation expert Piotr Butowski has .

In addition, we know that the attempts to modernize the Tu-22m3 For the M3M version advance a geological rhythm: Only three units updated since 2018 from units in an operating state. The idea that Russia can update machines with Severe structural problems It is absurd.

The immediate effect

As the War Zone points out, each tu-95ms destroyed eliminates capacity to launch 64 monthly cruise missiles – eight by operational exit. The destruction of these machines also directly affects strategic capacity nuclear.

The Tu-95 and Tu-160 are the most flexible component of the Russian atomic triad. The loss of these bombers weakens their conventional and nuclear attacking capacity, weakening the doctrine of ‘staggered dissuasion’.

According to a military analyst at the Royal United Services Institute quoted by El Confidential, Russia could throw nuclear pumps of land or seabut without planes loses controlled climbing options.

“How to estimate the price of Tu-95mswhich has not been produced for over 30 years and has no replacement? Its value to the Russian Air Force It’s bigger than money“, Afirma Butowski.

Russia will now redistribute your surviving bombers on secondary bases, increasing response times and reducing exits 30% according to Ukrainian-General State Analysis.

This forced dispersal It has already been detected by satelliteswho photographed Tu-160 bombers replaced in aerodromes without reinforced hangars In Vorkuta, in the Arctic Polar Circle.

But, says the confidential, leave the Tu-160 aired exposes us to a new attack and the Ukrainians They won’t stop now – wherever they are These aircraft. Therefore, it is not understood that Russia does not park its most precious planes in reinforced hangars.

In truth, the air forces of almost all countries of the planet are now on alert, because No one imagined that this was possible. The US is now in a process of building reinforced hangars to prevent drone attacks.

The devastating Ukrainian operation revealed An uncomfortable truth For Moscow, says the confidential: Your most precious nuclear assets are vulnerable – And the Russian Air Force, which was already weakened before the war, now faces a terminal decay.