In total, 436 Russian aircraft are participating in air operations against Ukraine.
The head of the Main Directorate of Intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, told about this in an interview with Radio Liberty.
"Itʼs a lot. But if you ask how many Tu-22s are among them, then these are units. They had about 31 serviceable Tu-22s left, now 29, minus two more that will be under repair, i.e. 27. That is, there are not so many that are actually flying," he said.
According to him, during the operations at the Russian military airfields "Soltsi" (Novgorod region) and "Shaykovka" (Kaluga region), two planes were completely destroyed, two more were damaged.
"The two damaged ones will be repaired over time, this must also be understood," the head of the State Government emphasized.
According to him, "We know well the people who did it […] these are people who from the territory of the Russian Federation performed certain tasks."
- On August 19, the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation announced the attack of a drone on the military airfield "Soltsi" in the Novgorod region, indicating that "a drone of the copter type tried to attack the military airfield." The drone was allegedly "shot down with small arms", but Babelʼs intelligence sources say that the drone attacks on Russian airfields "Soltsi" and "Shaykovka" resulted in one destroyed Tu-22M3 strategic bomber and four such damaged ones.