Two explosions carried out by Ukraine hit two military airports in the country, reportedly destroying two Russian nuclear bombers and causing three deaths and six injuries, media reports claimed on Monday. According to estimates, the explosions were caused by tankers loaded with gasoline.
BREAKING:
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) December 5, 2022
Major explosions at the Engels Air Base in Saratov, Russia.
It’s the same air base from which a major Russian air attack is expect to be launched against Ukraine.
Initial reports say Ukraine attacked it with drones and damaged 2 Tu-95 bombers pic.twitter.com/nvp3BsVu6W
One of the bombed airports contained a training center for military aircraft and tanks. At the second airport, two Tu-95 nuclear bombers were hit by a drone. In addition, military officials in the Luhansk region in eastern Ukraine said that nine people were killed after the Ukrainian army shelled the city of Alchevsk.
The news came after Russian Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu announced recently that in the coming year, Russia will focus on improving the infrastructure for its nuclear arsenal. His announcement came amid fears that Moscow might use nuclear weapons in the war in Ukraine. Benjamin Netanyahu, the presumptive incoming Israeli prime minister, said that the chances were not zero in an interview with NBC on Sunday.
HOW CAN RUSSIA MEASURE UP?
According to British intelligence estimates, Russia is unlikely to achieve success on the battlefield in the coming months, and therefore maintaining public silence regarding the war in Ukraine is expected to be more difficult for the Kremlin.
Consequences of the explosion at the airfield in Dyagilevo
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin
Satellite images of the airbase in Diaghilevo after the arrival of the UAV. Traces of the fall of the UAV are visible not far from the Tu-22M3 bomber. The explosion killed 3 people and injured 4 others. The bomber received damage to the tail, cut the elevators + crushed the engine.
Published footageof the consequences of the fall of the UAV at the airfield in Dyagilevo. It flew near the airfield launcher, 3 people from the calculation of which died. Damage to the elevators and engine can also be seen. A suspended rocket is also visible, which could also be hooked by shrapnel. So the car got off lightly.
The main problem is that these engines have not been produced for a long time, which is why the number of spare parts and components for them is limited. The production of these engines was liquidated under Yeltsin. In this regard, the current work on the design of a promising long-range bomber, which should replace the honored Soviet veterans, is of great importance.
The plane will certainly be repaired.
Rest in peace and health to the wounded.
More from Rozhin:
Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation about strikes on the energy system of Ukraine and attacks on the airfields of the Russian Aerospace Forces
Statement by the Russian Ministry of Defense on the attacks on airfields in Engels and Diaghilev and today's missile attacks on targets in Ukraine.
[...] On the morning of December 5, the so-called. The Kyiv regime, in order to disable Russian long-range aircraft, made attempts to strike with Soviet-made jet unmanned aerial vehicles at the military airfields "Dyagilevo" in the Ryazan region and "Engels" in the Saratov region.
The air defense of the Russian Aerospace Forces, flying at low altitude, Ukrainian UAVs were intercepted.
As a result of the fall and explosion at Russian airfields of the wreckage of jet drones, the hull skin of two aircraft was slightly damaged.
Three Russian technical servicemen who were at the airfield were fatally wounded.
Four more servicemen who were wounded were taken to medical institutions, where they were provided with all the necessary medical assistance.
Despite the attempts of the Kyiv regime to disrupt the combat work of the Russian Long-Range Aviation with a terrorist act, today at about 15.00 (Moscow time) a massive strike was carried out on the military command and control system and related objects of the defense complex, communication centers, energy and military units of Ukraine with high-precision air and sea-based weapons .
The target has been reached. All assigned 17 objects were hit.
As a result of the strike, the transfer of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reserves, foreign weapons, military equipment and ammunition to the combat areas by rail was disrupted.
Adds Rozhin:
PS. Satellite photos also confirm that there is no significant damage to the airfield infrastructure or signs of fire/detonation at the Engels airfield.
Previously:
Explosion at Engels airbase
[ColonelCassad] Regarding the explosion at the Engels air base. According to unofficial information, a drone (which type is not indicated) flew in and damaged two planes. In fact, one of the objects of the nuclear triad of the Russian Federation was attacked.
If they missed from the side of Ukraine, right up to Engels, then this is a clear flaw in air defense, if a terrorist group launched from the territory of the Russian Federation (as we have in Crimea in a couple of cases), then that is a flaw in the special services. In any case, the possibility of such attacks must be taken into account, since NATO, through the hands of its Ukrainian puppets, will seek to strike at the Russian military infrastructure, this is extremely obvious. Actually, it already does.
I hope that the explosion at the airfield in Engels will soon be followed by a new knockout blow.
From Russian military blogger Andrey Chervonets:
A look at Engels from Telegram
Regarding the explosion at the Engels air base , where, according to unofficial information, a drone flew in and damaged two Tu-95 aircraft. And Konashenkov, meanwhile, is reporting for the destroyed pickups of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
The drones that hit two air bases in Diaghilev and Engels this morning were likely launched from the Kharkiv region. Thus, the first one had to fly about 566 km to the Ryazan region, about 700 km to the Saratov region.
Several opinions on this matter:
Vladlen Tatarsky:
And I, a naive civic fool, thought that during the war, planes were under concrete shelters... No?
Ukrainian special services organized two acts of sabotage this morning at the airfields, in Ryazan and Engels. It turns out that small drones, the danger from which was so neglected, can attack strategic aircraft.
Once again, we note that enemy intelligence services can carry out sabotage in the rear, but when we start talking about such operations, we are told that "they don't work like that now" or "we work, you just don't know." It would be cool to wake up in the morning to find in the feed news about an explosion at a NATO base in Poland, for which leftists or religious radicals would take responsibility.
Veteran's Notes
Veterans being the call sign of a Russian military bogger
Here's how to explain to colonels and generals that OSINT (collection of information from open sources) is not just a beautiful, incomprehensible foreign word that is simply screwed into a turn of speech for effect?!
On November 29, a person from our OSINT team, with whom we have been working since March, warned that something was being prepared at the airfield in Engels. Maybe you should consider creating an OSINT intelligence and analytics staff right now? Well, how much can you neglect such a huge intelligence resource?
Today, OSINT in Russia is just a volunteer movement, in which simply caring citizens participate in private. These are people who want Russia to win and who work on a voluntary basis. And the state structure with a large staff and decent wages should work.
Daniil Bezsonov:
I wonder what kind of downs during the war they ordered to collect almost all strategic aviation and put it together, shoulder to shoulder, at one open-air airfield? At what level of the military hierarchy are such issues resolved? Someone will be punished for this criminal negligence or sabotage? When will the downs and seniles in big uniforms stop making decisions in the conditions of modern warfare?
I often hear a quote from Bodrov addressed to me that during the war one cannot speak badly about the country. That when the war is over, then we will find out everything and punish those responsible. I will answer.
I do not speak ill of our great country, and I will never speak ill of it. But some "professionals" need to be criticized. Otherwise, there will be no "we'll ask after the war." There will be no "after the war."
Let every tyrant know that his mistakes, which led to grave consequences, will become known and he will be punished for them. Then there will be a chance that these petty tyrants will make one of two correct decisions: either they quit the fuck, or they start to study, retrain, take care of the personnel and responsibly calculate each of their decisions.
Everyone loves to justify mistakes and heavy defeats by comparing this war with the Great Patriotic War. But then, just there was a tough and absolute work on the bugs, including the personnel ones. But at that time, the speed of everything was different, the technologies were different. And that meant more time. But the most important thing is that the people had an unbending morality and a margin of safety. Now all this is gone. And the sooner we understand this, the sooner we will win, and at a lower cost.
P.S.
From myself I will add, it is impossible to solve the problem without recognizing it. And the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation is too inert and, in my opinion, a very clumsy colossus. At first, the big generals do not notice the problem, then they ignore its presence for several months, and only then, only after the issue has been brought to the public plane, they begin to do something to solve something. Because information about the problems reached the Supreme.
In the illustration where the aircraft are placed - a photo from Yandex. It's just the stupid Yankees who wash their military installations. And ours - probably not. It is clear that in the age of satellites, such photos can be clicked from any angle. But the fact itself.
And one more thing, about OSINT, that is, fundraising from open sources. Of course, this should always be checked. Moreover, there are sources that always have a high degree of reliability.
What is easier - to find on a tip or to be warned, or to be completely in the dark? As, for example, it was near Kharkov, when the entire Telegram for another 2-3 weeks, back in August, was seething with information about the preparation of a strike by the Armed Forces of Ukraine in this direction, and the generals in this direction had no fortifications, no reserves, no necessary number of troops in this direction of elementary mining of dangerous directions.
| Courtesy of Skidmark, the Daily Mail has photos and video. |