Ukraine cripples one of Putin’s £75million TU-95 nuclear bombers in strike on Russian airbase

One of Putin’s feared £75million Tu-95MS ‘Bear’ nuclear bombers was confirmed as severely damaged by Ukraine in an overnight strike on a Russian airbase.

The hit was at Engels-2 airbase in Russia’s Saratov region. Satellite images show a badly damaged right wing.

It is the second Tu-95MS hit at Engels-2 in six weeks by the Ukrainians and a major blow for the Russian leader.

The planes are regularly used to bomb Ukraine with deadly conventional missiles, but it is also part of the Russian nuclear strike force.

‘In Engels, Russia, the Alpha unit of the SBU [security service] struck a Tu-95MS missile carrier,’ said Volodymyr Zelensky.

‘It is these aircraft that carry out attacks on Ukraine. Thank you for your accuracy to all our soldiers – this is all a response to their attacks. The Russians must feel what their war is like.’

Today’s strikes also set ablaze a major oil refinery in Russia’s Yaroslavl region.

Other Tu-95MS planes were previously damaged in last year’s Operation Spiderweb – when drones were released from trucks close to airfields in Russia.

 But the aircraft are no longer manufactured – making repairs harder.

The Soviet-era super noisy Tu-95s first flew some 70 years ago but remain a mainstay of the Russian nuclear force. They are the world’s only propeller-powered strategic bombers.

Meanwhile on Friday, Russia launched waves of drones at Ukraine’s capital Kyiv and surrounding region on Friday, damaging warehouses and homes in a second consecutive day of strikes Ukrainian officials said were an attempt to derail daily life for millions of residents.

At least one person was killed outside Kyiv, said Governor Tymur Tkachenko, adding that 14 warehouse premises, 16 homes and three blocks of apartment buildings had been damaged.

Frequent air raid sirens blared throughout the city on Friday morning, a day after an hours-long missile and drone attack on Ukraine that targeted major retailers and consumer logistics in Kyiv and elsewhere.

Those strikes continued on Friday, ⁠destroying sorting centres belonging to Ukraine’s top private courier Nova Poshta near Kyiv and in the northern city of Sumy, the company said.

In the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, a Russian drone tore into major home-improvement store Epicenter, wounding at least four people, Governor Ivan Fedorov said on Friday.

Ukraine’s state emergency service said Russia had attacked the Kyiv region 38 times during the past 24 hours, warning residents not to approach areas where firefighters were still battling blazes.

Friday’s attacks appeared aimed at prolonging the snarl-up sparked by strikes a day earlier, which delayed trains across several regions and left passengers stranded for long periods.

 ‘The enemy is ‌launching small ⁠numbers of jet-powered UAVs in waves with the aim of paralysing Kyiv,’ said Andriy Kovalenko, head of Ukraine’s Centre for Countering Disinformation (CCD), a branch of the National Security Council.

‘The aim – to wear down the air defences and the population.’

Ukraine’s state railway said on Friday that delays were gradually decreasing, but that the effects of frequent strikes and air raid alerts ⁠would be felt at least another day.

Kyiv spent nearly 15 hours under air raid alert on Thursday, according to Ukraine’s foreign ministry.

Russian forces also attacked a shopping centre in the city of Kharkiv in northeastern Ukraine, said Mayor ⁠Ihor Terekhov, the second such attack there in two days.

Russia and Ukraine have stepped up strikes in recent weeks on consumer logistics and online retailers in a bid to dent each other’s economies and weaken their ⁠respective war efforts.

Also on Friday, a Russian drone attack destroyed a warehouse in Kyiv region for a major book retailer that shipped thousands of titles per day, the company said.