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.
On July 16, one-way attack drones from the Ukrainian state security service—the vaunted SBU—motored 800 km to strike Engels-2 air base in western Russia. At the time, there were reportedly five bombers on the ground at the base: four Tupolev Tu-22Ms and a single Tupolev Tu-95.
The drones struck the four-engine, propeller-driven Tu-95. “According to preliminary data, the plane suffered critical damage,” the SBU claimed. “It completely torn off the tail part.” That particular aircraft, the SBU added, had been used systematically to launch massed missile strikes on Ukraine. Satellite imagery later confirmed the bomber’s destruction.
Nearly a month later, we finally know which drone type the SBU flung at Engels-2 and its parked bombers. They were MICH 2000s—Ukrainian aircraft that began as copies of the Chinese ZTK-150, built after Beijing stopped selling. Ukrainian website Oboronka, which visited the factory, broke the news. “Today, the ‘Mich’ is no longer just a Chinese plane, but a drone that is exclusively used by the SBU Special Operations Center ‘Alpha.’”
According to Oboronka, whose report was agreed in advance with the manufacturer and the SBU, the MICH 2000 flies as far as 2,000 km with a warhead weighing 25 to 60 kg. “The list of targets hit by this drone is updated every week,” Oboronka noted. They include Russian ports, military and industrial sites around Moscow and Engels-2.
The Engels-2 raid might be the most immediately impactful. After the July 16 raid, the Russians may be down to 43 Tu-95s, only a dozen of which are usually active at any given time.
Read the rest at Euromaidan Press.
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David, What's your assessment of what the destruction of Kotluban will have on Russia's ability to make progress against the Fortress Belt? It seems that this was by far the largest supply depot hit of the war.