Tu-95 Bear

The Tupolev Tu-95 (NATO reporting name "Bear") is a Soviet four-engine turboprop strategic bomber and cruise-missile carrier designed by the Tupolev design bureau and built by Aviakor for the Long-Range Aviation of the Soviet Air Forces. First flown on 12 November 1952, it entered service in 1956, and more than 500 were built between 1952 and 1993. It is the only turboprop-powered strategic bomber still in operational use, and its supersonic propeller-blade tips make it one of the loudest military aircraft. The Russian Aerospace Forces expect to fly the Tu-95MS until at least 2040; none has been built in more than 30 years, and it has no replacement.

Development

In 1950 the Tupolev and Myasishchev bureaus received a requirement for a bomber with an unrefuelled range of 8,000 km (5,000 mi) carrying 11,000 kg (24,000 lb) over the target. Tupolev chose turboprops over too-weak piston engines and too-thirsty AM-3 turbojets. The design was approved on 11 July 1951 around four coupled Kuznetsov turboprops of 8,900 kW (12,000 hp), each driving two contra-rotating four-blade propellers. The Tu-95/I prototype flew in November 1952 but crashed after six months when a propeller gearbox failed, killing its test pilot; the Tu-95/II used four single NK-12 turboprops of 12,000 ehp, and series production began in January 1956.

The Tu-95MS, an all-new cruise-missile carrier on the Tu-142 airframe, entered production in 1981 as the launch platform for the Kh-55: 32 were built as Tu-95MS6 and 56 as Tu-95MS16, 88 in all. A modernisation contract went to Tupolev on 23 December 2009, covering the 30–35 MS16s built from 1986. Its first stage added four twin underwing pylons for eight Kh-101/102 missiles plus new navigation equipment; conversions began at the Beriev plant in Taganrog in 2015 and were also carried out at Aviakor in Samara at about three a year, with 21 completed by April 2019. The second stage, the Tu-95MSM, first flew at Taganrog on 22 August 2020 and was put under contract with United Aircraft Corporation in August 2021.

Design

The Tu-95 has a conventional fuselage and a mid-mounted wing swept 35 degrees. The Tu-95MS is 46.2 m (151 ft 7 in) long with a span of 50.1 m (164 ft 4 in); it weighs 90,000 kg (198,416 lb) empty and 188,000 kg (414,469 lb) at maximum take-off. Four Kuznetsov NK-12 turboprops of 11,000 kW (15,000 hp) drive eight-blade contra-rotating propellers, giving a maximum speed of 925 km/h (575 mph), a cruise of 710 km/h (440 mph), a range of 15,000 km (9,300 mi) and a ceiling of 13,716 m (45,000 ft). The crew is six or seven, including a tail gunner.

The Tu-95MSM standard replaces the Obzor-MS radar with the Novella NV1.021 passive electronically scanned array, adds the Meteor-NM2 defensive suite, SOI-021 cockpit displays and a new weapons-control system, and fits NK-12MPM engines with AV-60T propellers that halve vibration; the tail turret is removed.

Armament

The Tu-95 carries up to 15,000 kg (33,000 lb) of weapons and a tail turret with two 23 mm GSh-23 cannon. Built as a free-fall nuclear bomber, it was designed to deliver weapons such as the 42-kiloton RDS-4 Tatyana and the 2.9-megaton RDS-37. Missile conversions followed: the Tu-95K/KD carried the Kh-20 and the Tu-95K22 the Raduga Kh-22. The Tu-95MS6 holds six Kh-55, Kh-55SM or Kh-555 cruise missiles on a rotary launcher in the weapons bay; the Tu-95MS16 adds four underwing pylons for a maximum of 16 Kh-55s or 14 Kh-55SMs. Modernised aircraft carry eight Kh-101 or Kh-102 missiles on four twin pylons in addition to the six internal rounds, 14 missiles in all. Over Ukraine the Tu-95MS routinely launches with less than a full load; neither the Tu-95MS nor the Tu-160 is believed to have dropped free-fall bombs in the war.

Operational History

The 106th Heavy Bomber Air Division formed on the type in 1956. Through the Cold War, crews rehearsed transpolar strikes over the Arctic and flew long-range patrols without nuclear weapons. On 30 October 1961 a Tu-95V dropped the AN602 "Tsar Bomba", carried semi-externally, the most powerful thermonuclear device ever detonated. Patrols ended in 1991; Ukraine inherited 23–29 Tu-95MS, handed three with 581 Kh-55s to Russia for gas debt in 2000 and scrapped the rest under the Nunn–Lugar programme by 2001.

President Putin announced the resumption of strategic patrols on 17 August 2007, and in July 2010 two aircraft flew more than 30,000 km (19,000 mi) in over 43 hours with four refuellings. The combat debut came on 17 November 2015 in Syria, with the first Kh-101 launches on 17 November 2016. Joint patrols with China followed: on 24 July 2024 two Tu-95s and two Chinese H-6s entered the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone together, the first time Russian and Chinese military aircraft had done so simultaneously; on 9 December 2025 two Tu-95s and two H-6s flew the tenth joint patrol from the East China Sea into the Pacific off Shikoku, and on 27 June 2026 two Tu-95MSs flew the eleventh, from the Sea of Japan to the East China Sea.

Tu-95MS/MSMs reportedly took part in the opening strikes on Ukraine on 24 February 2022, from a fleet one Western assessment put at a little under 50 aircraft, and have since launched Kh-101s from the Caspian and Black Sea areas. Losses have followed: Tu-141 drones damaged two aircraft at Engels-2 on 5 December 2022, after which, according to Ukrainian government sources cited by Janes, as many as six Tu-95s moved from Engels-2 to Ukrainka in Amur Oblast, some 6,000 km (3,700 mi) from Ukrainian-held territory and home of the 326th Heavy Bomber Division. A drone attack on Engels-2 on 20 March 2025 destroyed at least a dozen munitions-storage buildings without visible damage to aircraft, and Operation Spiderweb on 1 June 2025 destroyed seven Tu-95s according to satellite-imagery analysis by the Federation of American Scientists, four at Olenya and three at Belaya, with one more reportedly damaged. The SBU said on 17 July 2026 that a drone strike on Engels-2, which Russian Telegram channels had reported overnight on 16 July, severed the tail of another Tu-95, damage that satellite imagery published two days later confirmed, and a further drone attack on 28 August 2026 left a Tu-95MS without a third of its right wing, assessed as beyond repair. On 29 September 2026 a Tu-95MS crashed near Krasnoyarovo after take-off from Ukrainka on a reported training flight; six of the seven crew were reported killed. Fifty-five Tu-95MS were in service in 2020; according to the Federation of American Scientists, satellite imagery since the June 2025 strikes has shown the large majority at Ukrainka, with one or two each at Engels-2, Belaya and Olenegorsk, while, reportedly from April 2025, Russia began building at Engels what The War Zone counted in June 2026 as at least 17 large protective shelters sized for its Tu-95MSs and Tu-160s.

Variants

• Tu-95 (Bear-A): Basic free-fall strategic bomber, the only version never fitted with a nose refuelling probe.
• Tu-95K/KD (Bear-B): Carrier for the Kh-20 stand-off missile; the KD introduced the nose refuelling probe.
• Tu-95K22 (Bear-G): Older bombers rebuilt to carry the Raduga Kh-22 missile with updated avionics.
• Tu-95RTs (Bear-D): Naval reconnaissance and missile-targeting version with a large ventral radome; 40 built, in service 1966–1994.
• Tu-95MS (Bear-H): Cruise-missile carrier on the Tu-142 airframe, in production from 1981 as the MS6 (six internal Kh-55s) and MS16 (plus four underwing pylons).
• Tu-95MSM: Modernised MS16 with Novella NV1.021 radar, Meteor-NM2 defensive suite, NK-12MPM engines and eight Kh-101/102 under the wings; first flown 22 August 2020.