Russia sends its most valuable planes as far away from Ukraine as possible
Russia has scattered its most valuable warplanes to a remote airbase in the far east of the country, after a surprise Ukrainian drone attack devastated its strategic bomber fleet last Sunday.
Two Tupolev Tu-160 planes have been moved 4,000 miles from the front lines to the remote Anadyr airbase, which can only be accessed by air and sea, satellite imagery showed.
Located on the desolate Chukotka Peninsula, the airfield is around 410 miles from Alaska and was set up during the Cold War to defend Russia from potential US attacks.
The supersonic Tu-160 bombers can carry nuclear weapons and are by far the most expensive in Russia's inventory, with a price tag of around $500 million per unit. By comparison, the B-52 Stratofortress, the mainstay of the US's bomber fleet, has an estimated value of roughly $94 million.
In addition to being expensive, Tu-160s are rare. Russia is thought to have only 16 operational airframes, and Ukraine said it damaged some in last Sunday's attacks.
Prof Justin Bronk, a senior research fellow for air power at the Royal United Services Institute, told the i newspaper that imagery from the Anadyr base could suggest Moscow was trying to reduce the risk of more drone attacks.
Dubbed 'Operation Spider's Web', the June 1 strikes were the result of 18 months of meticulous planning by Ukraine's security service (SBU), which on Wednesday released a video detailing how the strikes played out.
Agents smuggled 'cheap drones' into Russia, 'right under the nose' of the Russian security agency, captions from the video read.
These drones were placed inside modified wooden cabins mounted on the back of lorries, then driven to locations near their targets by drivers who were seemingly unaware of their cargo.
Once near the airbases, the cabins released the drones to attack aircraft on the bases.
'Everything was planned down to the second,' the video explained. 'It happened simultaneously in three different time zones, involving 117 drones.'
'The SBU's web was to entangle all of Russia,' it said.
The SBU planned to attack five airfields, although only four were hit, as drones exploded prematurely while en route to a base in Russia's far east.
Admiral Pierre Vandier, Nato's Supreme Allied Commander Transformation, lauded the operation, saying it was a reinvention of the 'Trojan horse method', with new 'technical and industrial creativity'.
Sergei Ryabkov, Russia's deputy foreign minister, on Wednesday said Moscow's nuclear deterrence 'has not suffered significant damage', and that the affected equipment 'can and will be restored'.
Experts, however, said it would take years for Russia to recover from the assault, which Ukrainian officials estimated caused $7 billion worth of damage.
Several Tu-95 and Tu-22 bombers are believed to have been destroyed in the operation.
Kyiv said last week that Russia had used a Tu-160 to launch a cruise strike against Ukraine.
It claimed this indicated a shortage of Tu-95s and Tu-22s, as Moscow usually uses these older models for strikes rather than the more expensive and scarce Tu-160.
Both the Tu-95 and Tu-22 are no longer produced. Russia does assemble new Tu-160s, however only two are thought to have been completed since 2022.
Though the Tu-160 is a Soviet-era design, in 2018 the Russian ministry of defence ordered 10 new airframes at a cost of 160 billion roubles.
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