Ukraine puts four Russian warplanes out of action in long-range missile strikes
Ukraine destroyed three Russian warplanes and apparently put a fourth out of action with a long-range Atacms missile strike earlier this week, satellite imagery has shown.
Russia’s Belbek airbase, located on the occupied Crimean peninsula, was hammered by Ukrainian forces for two consecutive days.
Initial photographs from the aftermath of the strikes appeared to show the destruction of one ground-based air-defence system.
But freshly published satellite images by US-based Maxar Technologies revealed that two MiG-31 and one Su-27 fighter jets were completely destroyed.
The images show the charred wreckage of the two MiG-31 Foxhound interceptors on the apron of the airbase.
To the West, a damaged Su-27 Flanker can be seen in a parking bay, with what looks like the remains of a totally destroyed aircraft in the adjacent space.
A fourth MiG-29 also stationed at the airbase, in the suburbs of Sevastopol, appeared to be seriously damaged, perhaps beyond use, in the strikes.
It is not known whether the Soviet-era MiG-29 was operational.
Russia is known to have kept some of the fighter jets it captured from Ukraine when it illegally annexed Crimea in 2014 at the airbase as unflyable decoys.
A fuel storage near the airfield’s runway was also destroyed in the Ukrainian strikes.
Atesh, a pro-Ukrainian partisan network, claimed on the Telegram messaging app that the second strike had damaged an artillery and missile warehouse at the airfield.
“Significant damage to the airfield infrastructure as a result of secondary detonation was also recorded,” the group wrote.
However, none of the satellite images released appeared to confirm that ammunition dumps had been destroyed or that secondary detonations occurred from explosives going off.
Satellite images above the airbase by Planet Labs on May 1 confirmed that there were a number of Su-27 and MiG-31 aircraft parked on the ramp at Belbek.
The warplanes are known to take part in Russia’s long-range missile barrages against Ukrainian cities.
A special variant of the MiG-31 – the MiG-31K – is known to carry the hypersonic Kinzhal ballistic missile that Moscow uses to attack Ukraine, but it was not immediately clear whether the aircraft that were destroyed were of this type.
Analysts argue that continued strikes against Belbek will make it untenable for Russia to use as a staging post for future attacks on Ukraine.
The latest attacks were one of the largest losses of aircraft for the Russian military since it invaded Ukraine.
It was only likely surpassed when a Ukrainian Patriot missile launcher shot down as many as five Russian jets and helicopters in May 2023.
It also represented the first Russian losses of MiG-31 or Mig-29 aircraft in combat since the beginning of the invasion 27 months ago.
According to the Russian military, the Ukrainians fired 10 US-supplied Atacms at Belbek on Tuesday. Moscow said it had intercepted all of the ballistic missiles.
The strikes have triggered criticism over Russia’s lax security arrangements at the airfield, which is normally protected by an S-400 surface-to-air missile system.
One pro-Russian blogger questioned: “Why, 27 months after the start of the air defence system [in occupied Ukraine], are our air defence systems still standing in open spaces?
“Since last fall, we have been warning that the armed forces of Ukraine will concentrate all their forces on attacks on Crimea.”
