Explosions At Military Airfields: Russia Disgraced Itself

It was hard to miss the attacking drones.

Explosions at Engels and Dyagilevo airfields in Russia's Saratov and Ryazan regions showed that Russia's air defenses cannot protect its military facilities. And the whole world saw it.

As Alexander Kovalenko, a military and political columnist for the Information Resistance group, wrote on Telegram, the drone, which Russia accused Ukraine of using to strike the airfields, would have been hard to miss.

"There was a series of incidents in Russia. Konashenkov said that the Ukrainian Strizh UAV was allegedly to blame. I don't know if the verbalist general is aware of the fact that Strizh is a Soviet, backward and primitive UAV, almost the size of an F-16, buzzing like a harbinger of the Apocalypse, or not, but he only embarrassed the Russian air defense with his word," Kovalenko explained.

The expert says that Konashenkov also "discredits the Russian army" with such a statement, which is a crime in Russia.

"That is, a primitive UAV of Soviet times flies into Russian airspace, covers more than 700 km and strikes a strategic facility where the aviation from the nuclear triad is located, isn't it? I guess one should arrest Konashenkov for discrediting the Russian army," he added.

However, it is worth noting the lessons the international community has gained from these attacks.

"International observers of the war have witnessed that regardless of what exactly struck the Russian airfields, it bypassed the praised Russian air defenses and accomplished the task. It means that these observers that the Kremlin is frantically afraid of see not only that the "second" army in the world drags T-62 tanks and D-1 howitzers to the war zone in Ukraine, but it has no air defense system in fact," Kovalenko emphasized.

The expert also reminds that Russian air defense systems have already "disgraced themselves" in Syria and Libya. In addition, it was Russian-made systems that "the Azerbaijani army was snapping like seeds in Karabakh."

"Russian air defense systems? Congratulations to the buyers on their investment. However, the main thing is not congratulations. The main thing is that now everyone knows about it! Absolutely everyone," Kovalenko sums up.

Explosions on Russian airfields: the world reaction

On December 5, 2022, there were explosions at Russian airfields Engels in the Saratov region and Dyagilevo in the Ryazan region. Besides, on December 6, Russia announced about a drone attack on an airfield in Kursk.

According to experts, if the strikes on Russian military bases were carried out by Ukrainian drones, it indicates that Ukraine is capable of attacking the enemy at long range and Russian air defense systems are much weaker than previously thought.

Reuters, citing Western officials, wrote that the bombing of air bases deep in Russia would deliver a strong psychological blow and force the Kremlin to think hard about how to secure its long-range bombers.