Russia has scattered its most valuable warplanes to a remote airbase in the far east of the country, after a surprise Ukrainian drone attack devastated its strategic bomber fleet last Sunday, APA reports citing yahoo.
Two Tupolev Tu-160 planes have been moved 4,000 miles from the front lines to the remote Anadyr airbase, which can only be accessed by air and sea, satellite imagery showed.
Located on the desolate Chukotka Peninsula, the airfield is around 410 miles from Alaska and was set up during the Cold War to defend Russia from potential US attacks.
The supersonic Tu-160 bombers can carry nuclear weapons and are by far the most expensive in Russia’s inventory, with a price tag of around $500 million per unit. By comparison, the B-52 Stratofortress, the mainstay of the US’s bomber fleet, has an estimated value of roughly $94 million.
In addition to being expensive, Tu-160s are rare. Russia is thought to have only 16 operational airframes, and Ukraine said it damaged some in last Sunday’s attacks.
Prof Justin Bronk, a senior research fellow for air power at the Royal United Services Institute, told the i newspaper that imagery from the Anadyr base could suggest Moscow was trying to reduce the risk of more drone attacks.
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