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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On April 16, 2024, Pavan flew from Vancouver to Moscow via Istanbul and hired a driver to take him to occupied Donetsk. There, he crashed in the basement headquarters of the Interbrigades, a volunteer group, which according to the organisation's social media account was set up in 2014 to gather mercenaries to fight for Russia in Donetsk and the neighboring Ukrainian region of Luhansk and to organize humanitarian projects for civilians. The group's name refers to the Spanish Civil War, when leftists from many countries arrived in Spain to fight for the International Brigades against Francisco Franco's rebels. Pavan was two months shy of 18, fair-haired and lanky. He had inquired about enlisting but was told he had to first turn 18 under Russian law, according to a message he sent a foreign fighter from Spain. For about a week, he volunteered around Donetsk with the Interbrigades and helped rebuild a school. Wilmer Puello-Mota, an American former airman who fled to Russia after being charged with possession of child sexual abuse material, told Reuters he encountered Pavan in Donetsk, where the Canadian tried unsuccessfully to join the Russian army. Puello-Mota, who described the U.S. allegations against him as unfair, is now serving in Russia's military. 'Everybody he talked to down there, we told him, go home,' said Puello-Mota, whose contacts with Pavan appear in the court documents. He said Pavan did nothing more than volunteer for the Interbrigades for a day or two, as the court documents also indicated. Puello-Mota said the espionage allegations made by Poland against the teen made no sense. In late April, Pavan was out drinking in Donetsk when he was arrested. He told Polish prosecutors he was questioned about his family and friends at the police station by men who said they were from the FSB. The men put a bag over his head and drove him to a second location, where they interrogated him again, asking also about his travel plans around Europe. None of them gave Pavan their names. Eventually, he told prosecutors, he was taken to the Central hotel in Donetsk, a tall building with a glass facade in the heart of the occupied city. There he was grilled repeatedly by a group of at least six FSB officers and one man who said he was from Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service. After several days, they gave him instructions. After returning to Europe, Pavan was to lose his passport to conceal his trip to Russia and begin working for Russia's security services. 'This work was to consist of traveling around Europe and taking photos. In Ukraine, on the other hand, I was to enlist in the Ukrainian army; I was to receive detailed instructions for this later, after arriving in Ukraine,' Pavan told Polish prosecutors, according to a copy of his testimony seen by Reuters. The teen did not speak Russian, Ukrainian or Polish. The Russian men used a combination of threats and inducements to get him to agree, Pavan told Polish authorities. In exchange for his work, he'd get Russian citizenship and an apartment in any Russian city of his choosing. If he didn't comply, he would be killed, he told prosecutors. They then introduced Pavan to Slon, his FSB handler. Slon, who appeared to be in his 30s, never gave Pavan his real name. Slon did not respond to calls or to messages sent by Reuters via Telegram. Reuters was unable to contact him on his fake Instagram account. Pavan began messaging Slon on Telegram as he prepared to leave Donetsk. At first, their messages focused mainly on food. Slon's were sometimes in stilted English, as if he were using a translation app. C – Slon LP – Laken Pavan Later, Pavan shared a link to a website about how the British military was no longer accepting soldiers from Commonwealth countries like Canada. It is not clear why he shared the link. The same day in May, Slon sent Pavan details of his flight from Moscow to Istanbul. According to the messages, Slon drove with Pavan to the bus terminal in Donetsk, where Pavan boarded a bus to Moscow. Pavan later told Polish police he was given $2,000 in cash before leaving Donetsk. On May 14, Pavan arrived in Copenhagen via Istanbul. It's not clear why the Danish capital was chosen as his destination. Slon and Pavan messaged daily, with the FSB handler encouraging the teenager to apply for a new Canadian passport, buy a new phone, and set up a fake Instagram account for photos of his travels. Slon also created a fake profile for himself, picking the username '@ and uploaded a photo of a blonde woman as his profile picture. Reuters identified the woman as a 20-year-old Donetsk teacher named Anastasia Protsenko, who told Reuters she was unaware her image was being used for the account and knew no one named Slon. In Copenhagen, Pavan messaged Slon about the people he encountered. Slon seemed particularly interested in Pavan's new friend, an American defense contractor who was traveling through Copenhagen. He encouraged Pavan to continue talking to the American without making him suspicious. But Pavan's money was running out fast in Denmark. He messaged his mother in Canada for funds. 'He told me he had no money, that he hadn't been paid,' Nelson said. Until then, she thought Pavan was traveling with friends. "I said, who's paying for this trip because I wanted to know what was going on.' She said her son never answered her question. After days of Pavan's pestering, Slon finally transferred bitcoins to him on May 20. The next day, he sent more. Pavan's bitcoin wallet shows he received bitcoin worth more than $500 from two wallets on May 20 and 21 last year. In testimony, he confirmed these payments came from Slon's bitcoin wallets. Each time, Pavan said, Slon told the teen his own account needed replenishing first. At the request of Reuters, Global Ledger and Recoveris, both firms with expertise in tracing crypto movements, tracked the two bitcoin payments Pavan received using the wallet addresses listed in Polish court documents. Reuters confirmed the path of the payments. Global Ledger said the payments to Pavan's wallet were made after the two wallets Pavan identified as Slon's in court documents received a similar amount of bitcoins from two intermediaries. Those, in turn, received bitcoins worth hundreds of thousands of dollars from a large wallet set up in June 2022, Global Ledger said. Recoveris also traced the payments back to the large wallet. Recoveris also noted that outgoing transfers from the 'cluster' of wallets identified through Pavan's case took place during Moscow business hours. In three years, the large wallet has processed bitcoins equivalent to $600 million. Global Ledger said during that period, the wallet has transferred bitcoins to a crypto exchange called Garantex, which has been sanctioned by the European Union and the United States for its close association with sanctioned Russian banks. In March, the United States, Germany and Finland took down the online infrastructure used by Garantex. The wallet was active as of June. Reuters could not determine the ownership of the large wallet or the two intermediary wallets that paid into wallets Pavan identified as Slon's, or whether any were used in other sabotage or espionage cases. Global Ledger said the large wallet appeared to be funded by a major mining pool and a custodial service. 'Transactions from wallets linked to the FSB followed a structured laundering pattern, involving fund splitting, mixing with larger sums, and routing through unconnected deposit wallets,' Global Ledger wrote in its report for Reuters, noting methods commonly used to obfuscate the source and use of funds. Related content Insight: Sex toys and exploding cosmetics: anatomy of a 'hybrid war' on the West Russia-linked propaganda campaign pushes to undercut German support for Ukraine How one man became a Ukrainian traitor and Russian spy Ago Ambur, who until January this year served as the head of Estonia's Cybercrime Bureau and now works as chief operating officer at the cyberintelligence firm Glazer Technologies, said the wallets and transaction patterns alone were not enough to indicate that Russia's special services were behind them. 'Attributing a crypto activity to an adversary can be similar to finding a knife at a crime scene. It might match the type the adversary uses, but without fingerprints, DNA or surveillance footage, it remains just a clue,' he told Reuters. Pavan and Slon's last contact was on May 22, 2024, a day after the teen's arrival in Warsaw. In their final exchange, Slon reminded Pavan to apply for a new Canadian passport, and suggested he reach out to his father and his old military commander. The messages did not explain why. Twelve hours later, Pavan was in Polish police custody. Phillips, the lawyer for Pavan's family, said their aim is now to get the teen home to Canada to serve out his sentence. Pavan's family are 'devastated,' Phillips said. If Pavan is not granted early release, he is expected to complete his sentence in January 2026. Recently, Nelson looked online and saw thousands of horrific messages under Reddit and other social media posts about her son's case, calling him an idiot or worse. These people don't know anything about her son, Nelson says, and have no idea how he was detained and threatened by Russian agents. She has tried raising money so Pavan can get on his feet when he returns. The campaign she started has only raised $200. reuters investigates More Reuters investigations and long-form narratives Got a confidential news tip? Reuters Investigates offers several ways to securely contact our reporters Teenage Spies By Mari Saito, Anna Koper, Anton Zverev, Filipp Lebedev, Polina Nikolskaya Additional reporting by Tom Wilson, Anastasiia Malenko and Andrius Sytas Photo editing: Simon Newman Art direction and illustrations: Catherine Tai Animations: John Emerson Edited by Lori Hinnant Follow Reuters Investigates
