Roman Svitan: This Is An Irretrievable Loss For Russian Aviation

• 25.11.2025, 14:42

The strike on Taganrog deprived the RF of unique airplanes.

On the night of November 25, Ukrainian drones drove a series of strikes on Taganrog: the hangars of the Beriev Scientific and Technical Center, where they are upgrading Tu-95MS strategic bombers and where an experimental A-60 aircraft was parked, came under fire. OSINT channels report extensive damage, fire inside hangars and the likely destruction of expensive equipment.

How can the impact of the strike on Taganrog be assessed? What objects are confirmed to have been affected and what is most valuable among the hit? About this site Charter97.org talked to the colonel of the AFU in reserve, military expert and flight instructor Roman Svitan:

- This Beriev Aviation and Research Center, which is located on the Taganrog site. There's an airfield there, they have hangars there. This is a fairly serious enterprise for modernization of strategic bombers and heavy transport aircraft. By the way, all these A-50s and A-60s are serviced there, among other things. They have approvals for maintenance and modernization. Tu-95, which were once hung on the X-101 missiles, making them Tu-95MS - and they can already carry these missiles, 8 pieces on the wing. It is there they were modernized, produced, maintained. Especially there are moments associated with the current shortcomings in the design of the Tu-95 airframe due to the fact that the heavy missiles were suspended. That is, they need to be serviced more often. And they are now almost all the Tu-95 after a certain accelerated time trying to drive in Taganrog for maintenance to be able to lift them and perform combat missions.

As soon as our intelligence received information that there took three Tu-95MS for further modernization and maintenance, was struck. Well prepared in terms of rational component of the attack. A massive, combined attack that gave us the opportunity to push through the Russian front-line air defense that exists in Donbas. It is dense there - 150 kilometers deep. Nevertheless, the AFU pushed through. By various mechanisms of pushing through: with the help of a large number of decoy drones, electronic warfare systems, dipole reflectors. In other words, they "shone their eyes" on the Russian locators of the radio-technical forces of the Russian Federation.

The attack drones traveled further to Taganrog and inflicted a serious defeat on Beriev and the plant for the production of petrochemical equipment. The strike there was not only on Beriev - it was a combined attack with several targets. This is also the right approach, by the way: if you break through the air defense, which costs money, it is better to launch a large number of drones into this window, into this corridor, and then go further into the Russian rear. This is the task that was carried out.

- How much does the loss of the A-60 or the modernized Tu-95MS cost Russia? How painful are such destructions for its aviation?

- The A-60 aircraft is more of a laser control system, a kind of system. It's like the A-50 aircraft - a radar, only of a different range. It is also based on the IL-76, but more laser, let's say. That is why it was not actively used, but there are very few of these airplanes. And the Russians value them, of course. They lost one of them.

Tu-95MS are also few. For the Russians, even the loss of one airplane is significant. Moreover, the AFU damaged them during "Spider's Web", when Operation "Spider's Web" was conducted. That's why every airplane counts for them now. They can't and won't produce it anymore. So it is an irrecoverable loss forever. The loss of even one airplane hits Russian strategic aviation very hard. They use strategic missiles in Ukraine, but recently they have stopped using them in large quantities, realizing that they are hammering nails with a microscope.

Loss of aircraft that are carriers of these missiles... Except for Tu-95 and Tu-160, they do not lift anything in the air. So for them, the loss of every irrecoverable airplane that can't be produced - and the Tu-95 can't be produced - is a permanent loss. A very painful loss. That's why the AFU are chasing them.

- What distinguishes this operation from previous strikes on Russian airfields?

- This operation is distinguished by preparation - competent, correct, multidisciplinary, professional preparation for an air strike in accordance with all the laws of aviation science. It is felt that there are already good aviation specialists within the unmanned systems force. Exactly high-level aviation specialists.

- Can it be said that hangars and shelters no longer provide protection for Russian aircraft?

- Hangars, in principle, did not provide much protection from external attack. You have to understand what a hangar is - it protected the airplane from precipitation. Not from impact, but from precipitation. It was a place where the airplane could be disassembled, assembled, serviced. An airplane is serviced, just like a car. Of course, it is better to service it in a garage, not on the street. It's the same with an airplane. Imagine how many problems there are with the outside. That is, a hangar is not for shelter from impact, but precisely from meteorological fallout.

Why did the Russians start building hangars, and in large numbers? Roughly speaking, by building a dozen hangars, one airplane will be pulled into one, and the rest will stand empty. It's kind of a distraction. Because we don't know where the airplane is at any given moment. And the large number of hangars made it possible to at least hide the immediate location of the airplane, not to hide the airplane from the missile as such if you already know exactly where it is.