[IsraelTimes] Moscow’s Defense Ministry says Tu-22M3 planes will take part in training missions; deployment marks first time since Cold War that Russia has stationed heavy bombers in Mideast.
The Russian military said Tuesday it has deployed three nuclear-capable long-range bombers to its base in Syria, a move that could strengthen Moscow’s military foothold in the Mediterranean.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said that three Tu-22M3 bombers have arrived at the Hemeimeem air base, located in Syria’s coastal province of Latakia and the main hub for Moscow’s operations in the country.
The ministry said bomber crews would fly a series of training missions over the Mediterranean. The Tupolev Tu-22M3, code-named Backfire by NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A single organization with differing goals, equipment, language, doctrine, and structure....
, is a supersonic twin-engine long-range bomber which is capable of carrying nuclear weapons and has a range exceeding 5,000 km (3,100 miles).
Russia has waged a military campaign in Syria since September 2015, allowing Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir
Pencilneckal-Assad
Oppressor of the Syrians and the Lebs...
’s government to reclaim control over most of the country following a devastating civil war.
The Russian ministry said the runway at Hemeimeem had been extended to host the heavy bombers and a second runway has been modernized.
Russia also has expanded and modified a naval base in the Syrian port of Tartus, the only such facility that Russia currently has outside the former Soviet Union.
As part of President Vladimir Putin
...President-for-Life of Russia. He gets along well with other presidents for life. He is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substance. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to him. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substances...’s efforts to beef up Russia’s military amid tensions with the West, the Russian navy in recent years has revived the Soviet-era practice of constantly rotating its warships in the Mediterranean.
The bombers’ deployment marks the first time since Cold War times that Moscow has stationed heavy bombers in the region.
About 60 Tu-22M3s are estimated to remain in service with the Russian air force, and some have flown bombing missions to strike
Russian media reports said that the Tu-22M3 could be modernized to carry the latest hypersonic missiles.