Bomber 'destroyed by drone' at airbase deep inside Russia

A drone appears to have destroyed a supersonic Russian bomber on an airfield hundreds of miles from Ukraine, British military intelligence has said, the latest in a string of successful assaults on prestige infrastructure and military hardware.

- Emma Graham-Harrison, Helen Sullivan

The attacks, far beyond the frontline, are powerful propaganda for Ukraine, though Kyiv rarely claims responsibility for them directly. Hits on key assets, which are meant to be heavily guarded by the latest technology, are highly damaging to morale in Russia, even if they do not change the balance of forces on the battlefield.

The latest attack was "highly likely" to have destroyed a Tu-22M3 Backfire bomber jet at the Soltsy-2 airbase, 400 miles (650km) from the border with Ukraine, on 19 August, British military intelligence said in a regular update on the war.

Social media images showed an aircraft that resembled the Tu-22M3 in flames on a runway. The planes have been used regularly in campaigns that killed civilians in Ukraine, including dropping unguided missiles on Mariupol during an intense bombing campaign at the start of Russia's invasion. In January this year, a Tu-22M3 was probably used to launch a heavy anti-ship missile at a block of flats in Dnipro.