All articles tagged with #tu 95
A former US Navy sailor recounts a dramatic encounter with a Soviet Tu-95 Bear that flew beneath his aircraft carrier's flight deck and passed close to the ship, with a CAP F-4 Phantom nearby; the anecdote, shared on Quora, highlights how close Cold War–era carrier operations could get without incident.
A Russian Aerospace Forces officer was shot in the torso and face by a motorcyclist near Engels, a key base for Russia's strategic bombers; the driver was injured, and preliminary unconfirmed reports suggest the target could have been Major General Nikolai Varpakhovich, commander of the 22nd Heavy Bomber Aviation Division. Varpakhovich's unit operates Tu-95MS and Tu-160 bombers used in strikes on Ukraine, and the EU has sanctioned him for actions supporting Russia's war in Ukraine. The injured officer was being prepared for transfer to Moscow as investigators assess the motive.
A Ukrainian drone strike is reported to have blown off the tail of a Russian Tu-95 strategic bomber at Engels air base, part of a wider set of Ukraine-Russia actions including strikes on Russian shipping, an oil depot near Donetsk, and an attack in Odesa that killed two. The update also notes Russian fire over Novorossiysk, a fire at a maritime academy in Kherson, evacuations in Kherson, and ongoing discussion of a potential Russian mobilization, framing the conflict as a growing drone-led war with domestic Russian pressures and dissent.
Planet Labs imagery, released via Schemes, shows a long-range Ukrainian drone strike severely damaged a Russian Tu-95 at Engels-2 in the Saratov region, with visuals that appear to sever the bomber in half. The SBU affirmed the strike’s reach and aim, and Zelensky praised it as a long-range sanction against Moscow.
U.S. NORAD scrambled F-16s, F-35s and KC-135s to escort two Tu-95 bombers, two Su-35 fighters and an A-50 spy plane off the Alaska ADIZ; the aircraft did not enter U.S. or Canadian airspace, and NORAD described the incident as a routine, non-threatening rotation as they departed.