(Stavropol) On Friday a video was released showing a Russian TU-22M bomber tumbling out of the sky whilst on fire. strategic bomber has gone down over Stavropol Krai, in the North Caucasus region of Russia.
Kyiv claims it shot it down, whilst Moscow admitting the loss claims it was due to a technical failure which doesn’t explain why a second TU-22M which was accompanying the one which fell from the sky in flames decided to turn tail and return to base without launching the cruise missiles it was carrying. Yeah, funny that. What is most interesting about this incident , is it took place around 200 miles east of the Kerch bridge well inside Russia well out of the range of the supplied Western Air defence missiles such as Patriot and supports the widely held view that the Ukraine has somehow upgraded its ancient soviet era S200 missiles (range 190 miles+) in which to target and take out modern Russia aircraft in areas (such as the downing of the Russia Beriev A-50 AWAC aircraft) which until of late , Moscow felt its aircraft were safe to operate in.
The TU 22M is a supersonic, variable-sweep wing,
long-range strategic bomber which entered service with the Soviet Airforce in
1972, that said, the aircraft has been upgraded numerous times over the years and
the latest iteration Tu-22M3M (New engines
from Tu-160M2 , 80 percent of avionics replaced or upgraded, including
SVP-24-22 bombsights, a phased array NV-45 radar, GLONASS navigation system,
modern digital glass cockpit and engine controls, electronic warfare
countermeasures, and the ability to use precision air-to-surface weapons.) coming into service in 2018
