Soltsy-2 airbase, which is home to Russian Tu-22M3 Backfire swing-wing bombers, was hit by a drone strike yesterday. Images of black smoking billowing from the base further solidified those reports, but it wasn’t clear what was burning. Now, photos have emerged that show a Tu-22M3 engulfed in flames at the base.
The images first appeared on Telegram and have since made their way onto other social media platforms. Russian MoD has said one unspecified aircraft was damaged due to a drone attack, stating the following on its Telegram channel:
“At around 10:00 Moscow time today, the Kiev regime carried out a terrorist attack using a copter type UAV against a military airfield in Novgorod region. The UAV was detected by the airfield’s observation outpost and was hit with small arms fire.
As a result of the terrorist attack, a fire broke out in the airfield parking lot, which was promptly extinguished by firefighting teams.”
The installation sits roughly 115 miles south of St. Petersburg, 315 miles west of Moscow, and 100 miles east of NATO member Estonia. This puts it about 415 miles north of the border of Ukraine. Kyiv’s long-range drone arsenal has expanded dramatically in recent months, with regular attacks on Moscow now a reality.
There have also been sabotage attacks on Russian airfields far from Ukraine and the possibility of the use of smaller drones for localized attacks by such teams has been a major threat.
Tu-22M3 with a Kh-22/32 under its wing. (Dmitriy Pichugin via Wikicommons)
The Soviet-era Tu-22Ms have been a major problem for Ukraine since not long after Russia’s all-out invasion of the country. They have been used to launch old supersonic Kh-22s and newer Kh-32 variants — which are primarily heavy anti-ship missiles — against Ukrainian targets. The high speeds of these missiles meant Ukraine had little defense against them, until the Patriot air defense system arrived. However, Ukrainian Patriots are still few in number and primarily cover the capital, Kyiv. The first video of Kh-22/Kh-32 missiles being launched at Ukrainian targets emerged in May 2022.