Group of Tu-22M3 bombers redeployed to Kola
As many as 16 bomber planes flew from Belaya air base in Siberia to the Olenya air base south of Murmansk on Monday.
The well-informed Ukrainian military news and blog portal Militarnyi has reported about the Russian aircraft being redeployed.
The Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten quotes associate professor with the Air Force Academy, Lars Peder Haga, saying: "It hasn't happened before that Russia has moved so many of these aircraft over such a long distance."
The bombers came from the Far East and landed at the Olenya air base inside the Arctic Circle on Monday, Militarnyi noted. Other sources claim that the planes came from Belaya air base, just west of Lake Baikal in Siberia.
The Olenya is next to the mining town of Olenegorsk, about a one-hour drive south of Murmansk.
The air base has frequently been used by long-range Tu-95MS bombers to strike targets in Ukraine. On June 1 this year, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) launched a spectacular attack against Olenya, using a swarm of small drones taking out four Tu-95MS bombers and one An-12 transport aircraft.
Olenya air base is about 1,800 kilometres north of Russia's border with Ukraine. The Tu-22M3 aircraft has a range of about 2,400 km. Its missiles, the Kh-22 and Kh-32, can fly 300-1000 kilometres, depending on the modification and warheads.
Deployed on the Kola Peninsula, the planes strengthen Russia’s ability to launch Kh-22 and Kh-32 missiles against targets in Ukraine. The Tu-22M3 is supersonic, so are the missiles. That gives short warning time for Ukrainian anti-missile defence.
Associate professor Lars Peder Haga told Aftenposten that these are "very imprecise weapons, which have a tendency to miss what are the actual targets."
However, they have a large warhead that can cause significant damage.
Russia has previously relocated Tu-22M3 aircraft to the Kola Peninsula. Like in August 2023 when at least six planes flew to the north from the Soltsy-2 airfield in the Novgorod region after that base was attacked by Ukrainian drones.
In July 2024, a drone hit a Tu-22M3 parked at Olenya, but it is unclear how much damage the impact inflicted on the plane. In the following months, Russian air defence shot down several incoming drones near the airfield.
In January 2019, a Tu-22 crashed during a hard landing at Olenya, killing the crew of three.
After Ukraine's "Operation Spiderweb" against the air base on June 1 this year, Russia moved away many of the larger Tu-95MS to safter locations at airfields in Siberia.
Satellite images studied by the Barents Observer this summer and autumn have shown that lately normally only one or two Tu-95MS planes are parked there. However, ahead of sorties against Ukraine, more planes are flying to Olenya to be armed with missiles.
On October 30, seven Tu-95MS bombers flew from the Olenya air base and launched about 30 Kh-101 cruise missiles against civilians in Ukraine.
