Every Bomber Russia Loses Is A Bomber It Can't Replace
But the Russian air force has new tactics to boost the remaining bombers' firepower
This story was commissioned by Euromaidan Press. Since Substack pays only around a fifth of my bills, I have no choice but to take on a lot of freelance work. I still want my Substack audience to know where to read those freelance stories, however. Hence this excerpt.
A Russian air force Tupolev Tu-22M Backfire bomber crashed in Irkutsk Oblast near Mongolia on or just before Monday. Dramatic videos from the ground depict the swing-wing bomber falling to the ground after apparently suffering a mechanical malfunction near Belaya air force base.
The crash is a victory of sorts for Ukraine, as it labors to reduce Russia’s fleet of long-range bombers. The bombers routinely launch cruise missiles at Ukrainian cities as part of Russia’s wider campaign of terror targeting Ukrainian civilians.
But the Russian air force is adapting to the risks of Russia’s wider war in Ukraine faster than its most powerful warplanes—its roughly 125 bombers—crash or get shot down. It doesn’t take a lot of bombers to terrorize Ukraine. Especially as the Russians have learned new methods of maximizing the bombers’ firepower.
The Russian air force went to war in Ukraine in February 2022 with roughly 125 long-range bombers: 60 Tu-22M3s, 50 propeller-driven Tu-95MSs and around 15 Tu-160s. In 52 months of wider war, as many as 10 Tu-22Ms and nine Tu-95Ms have crashed, been shot down or been destroyed on the ground by Ukrainian drones.
Most incredibly, Ukrainian agents smuggled hundreds of tiny explosive drones deep into Russia as part of Operation Spider Web on June 1, 2025, striking multiple air bases including Belaya and hitting a dozen bombers including four Backfires.
The problem for the Russian air force is that neither the supersonic Tu-22M nor the subsonic Tu-95M is in production anymore, and reestablishing production lines is virtually impossible given the extreme high cost. The supersonic Tu-160M is in production, however, and the Russians have managed to add four of the supersonic bombers to the fleet since 2022.
Read the rest at Euromaidan Press.
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