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New Satellite Images Show Impact of Ukrainian Strikes on Russia’s Engels Air Base. Here’s What We Know
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Fresh satellite imagery has confirmed the destruction of a Russian Tu-95MS strategic bomber at Engels-2 air base in Russia’s Saratov region following a Ukrainian drone strike carried out on July 16.
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Images published by the open-source intelligence group AviVector and independently confirmed through Planet Labs satellite imagery obtained by Schemes (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty) show the aircraft with catastrophic structural damage, including the complete destruction of its tail section, indicating the bomber is beyond repair.
🔻 Satellite images of 🇷🇺 Engels-2 Air Base as of July 19, 05:10 UTC
— AviVector (@avivector) July 19, 2026
On the night of July 16, the Security Service of Ukraine destroyed a Tu-95MS strategic bomber at Engels-2 Air Base.
Two Tu-95MS were at Engels Air Base for a long period of time and conducted rotations,… pic.twitter.com/60707jLmGj
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced on July 17 that Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) had destroyed a Tu-95 bomber during the overnight operation in Engels. According to Ukrainian officials, the aircraft was one of the bombers regularly used by Russia to launch Kh-101 cruise missiles against Ukrainian cities.
According to AviVector, two Tu-95MS bombers had been stationed at Engels-2 for an extended period, where they were undergoing maintenance, crew rotation, and training activities. The latest imagery indicates that one of the aircraft sustained irreversible damage during the strike.
Schemes, citing Planet Labs imagery captured on July 19, also reported that one Tu-95 at Engels-2 appears effectively split apart after the attack, providing independent visual confirmation of the aircraft’s destruction.
The Tu-95MS is Russia’s primary air-launched cruise missile carrier. Although based on a Soviet-era design, the aircraft has undergone multiple modernization programs, including the Tu-95MSM upgrade, which introduced new engines, avionics, navigation systems, and the ability to carry up to eight externally mounted Kh-101 or Kh-102 cruise missiles.
According to publicly available estimates cited by Ukrainian defense analysts, Russia operated approximately 31 Tu-95MS and 27 upgraded Tu-95MSM bombers as of 2024. Production of the aircraft ended in 1992, making every operational airframe difficult to replace.
The strike comes more than a year after Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb, an SBU operation conducted in June 2025 that damaged or destroyed multiple Russian strategic bombers. Since then, Russia has increasingly dispersed its long-range aviation fleet, relocating many aircraft to Ukrainka Air Base in Russia’s Far East while continuing to use Engels-2 to arm bombers before missile strikes.
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