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Ukraine has dealt Russia two of its most symbolically and strategically significant blows of the war in the space of 24 hours. President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed Friday that Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) had destroyed a Tu-95 strategic bomber at the Engels air base in Russia’s Saratov Oblast — roughly 800 kilometres from the Ukrainian border and one of Russia’s primary launch sites for cruise missile attacks on Ukrainian cities, per the Kyiv Post and Ukrainska Pravda. The Tu-95 is a Soviet-era aircraft that Russia stopped manufacturing decades ago, meaning each one destroyed represents a permanent, irreplaceable loss to Moscow’s strategic bomber fleet. The SBU said the operation caused approximately $7 billion in damage overall and disabled around 34 percent of cruise missile carriers across key Russian air bases, the Kyiv Independent reported — figures that, like all self-reported Ukrainian military claims, should be treated as propaganda estimates rather than verified figures.
The bomber kill came alongside a separate wave of long-range drone strikes that struck civilian-linked infrastructure at remarkable depth. Russian officials confirmed that Ukrainian drones hit two warehouses belonging to Wildberries, Russia’s largest online retailer. In Kotovsk, Tambov Oblast — approximately 475 kilometres southeast of Moscow — Governor Evgeniy Pervyshov said seven workers were killed and 25 injured when a Wildberries warehouse was struck, according to The Independent. A second strike hit a Wildberries facility in Elektrostal east of Moscow, injuring at least 24 more people, per Moscow region Governor Andrei Vorobyov. In the Noginsk district, drone debris sparked a fire at an oil depot, injuring two people and forcing the evacuation of a nearby maternity hospital.
Meanwhile Russia’s Ministry of Defense claimed its air defenses destroyed 379 Ukrainian drones overnight in Russian territory, according to a morning briefing reported by Pravda — a figure the Russian government presents as evidence of their defensive competence but which simultaneously confirms the sheer volume of Ukrainian strike packages now reaching Russian soil. Russia’s own reporting on drone intercepts has historically been inflated; independent verification of both sides’ claims is essentially impossible.
On the political front, Ukraine’s internal drama continued to compound its battlefield pressure. Zelensky moved to repair a rift with Poland that erupted after he named a Ukrainian army unit in honour of World War Two Nazi fighters responsible for killing ethnic Poles. He chaired a crisis meeting with senior officials pledging expanded investigations into the killings and opening of intelligence files, after Polish President Karol Nawrocki stripped him of Poland’s top honour in response, The Independent reported. Poland remains critical to Ukrainian logistics and political support within NATO — the last thing Kyiv can afford is a rupture with Warsaw while the country is simultaneously experiencing protests at home over Zelensky’s sacking of his popular Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov.
Russia continues to take territory in Donbass, opening the way forward to control the vital logistical region of Slavyansk. This is creating desperation among the Ukrainian elite, hence the increase in long-range bombing inside the Russian Federation.
The strategic picture: Ukraine is demonstrating an ability to strike deep inside Russia’s strategic deterrent architecture at will, while Russia continues to attack Ukrainian ports and civilian areas, moving he line of troops steadily forward. Neither side is close to a negotiated settlement. The Engels strike in particular is a direct challenge to Russia’s nuclear posture signalling — the Tu-95 is a dual-use platform that carries both conventional cruise missiles and nuclear-capable variants. Destroying one 800km inside Russian territory is not a small thing.
This development will add to hardliner pressure inside the Kremlin to escalate the conflict, possibly to European manufacturing and logistical targets, or even capitals, as Russia rightly sees this as a war against NATO. Anything is possible at this point.
Unfortunately, we believe that is exactly what globalist Europe wants — WWIII.
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