Politico: The Armed Forces of Ukraine hit Russian airbases with modified Soviet Tu-141 “Strizh”

Author:
Kostia Andreikovets
Date:

On December 5, Ukrainian troops attacked two Russian airbases with modified Soviet Tu-141 Strizh drones with a flight range of one thousand kilometers.

Citing two sources, Politico writes that the modernization of such old UAVs as the reconnaissance Tu-141 shows the ability of the Ukrainian defense industry to innovate in wartime conditions, and the attack itself speaks of the shaky air defense of the Russian Federation.

One of the unnamed employees of the Ukrainian government believes that the key factor in the success of those attacks was surprise — Russia simply "didnʼt expect anything like this."

The Defense Express portal also suggests that the Armed Forces of Ukraine used the Tu-141. The material of the portal talks about the transformation of a helpless UAV of the 70s into a ground-based cruise missile, which is a little more than a simple conversion and will have global positive consequences for Ukraine. Until 2022, the Armed Forces of Ukraine considered the Tu-141 as targets for training anti-aircraft calculations.