Ukraine Says Its Drones Destroyed a Tu-95 Strategic Bomber at Engels Air Base Deep Inside Russia

Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) destroyed a Russian Tu-95MS strategic bomber in a long-range drone strike on Engels-2 air base in Russia's Saratov Oblast, roughly 800 kilometers (500 miles) from the Ukrainian border, Ukrainian officials announced on July 17.

Russian Telegram channels had reported a drone attack on the base overnight on July 16. The SBU said its drones covered approximately 800 kilometers to reach the target and released footage showing the bomber with its tail section completely severed, describing the damage as critical and the aircraft as beyond repair. President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed the operation, calling it another successful act of "long-range sanctions" and noting the aircraft "was used to launch missile strikes against our country." Russia's Ministry of Defense has not commented on the claim, and independent satellite confirmation of the bomber's status was not yet available at the time of writing.

The Tu-95, known to NATO as the Bear, is a Soviet-designed turboprop strategic bomber that has flown since the 1950s. In its modernized Tu-95MS form it serves as one of the principal launch platforms for Kh-101 cruise missiles, which Russia has fired at Ukrainian cities and infrastructure throughout the war in Ukraine. GlobalMilitary.net inventory data credits the Russian Air Force with 47 active Tu-95s. Because production ended in the early 1990s and no replacement line exists, every airframe lost is effectively irreplaceable until the next-generation PAK DA bomber materializes.

The strike extends a costly pattern for Russia's strategic aviation. In June 2025, Ukraine's Operation Spiderweb destroyed eight Tu-95s at Belaya air base in Irkutsk Oblast using drones smuggled deep into Russian territory, part of the largest single blow to the bomber fleet since the war began. Engels-2, the main operating base for Russia's Tu-95MS and Tu-160 fleets, has itself been attacked repeatedly since December 2022, when Ukrainian strikes first demonstrated that bases hundreds of kilometers behind the border were within reach. Those raids forced Russia to disperse its bombers across distant airfields and invest in revetments and decoy measures.

If confirmed, the loss would further thin a bomber force that Western analysts assess is already strained by heavy cruise-missile tasking and aging airframes. Ukraine, for its part, has signaled that long-range strikes on high-value military aircraft will continue as its domestically produced deep-strike drones grow in range and number.