The expert noted that every extra hour of load on the power plants of the strategic aviation of the Russian Federation is a sentence.

To date, almost all Russian strategic aviation aircraft have used up their motor resources. Yes, Tu-95MS, Tu-160, Tu-22M3 planes are all flying dead.

Oleksandr Kovalenko, a military-political commentator of the “Information Resistance” group, described the situation with the state of Russian aircraft in his Telegram channel. He noted that every extra hour of load on the power plants of the strategic aircraft of the Russian Federation is a sentence.

“The launch weight of the Kh-101 missile is more than 2 tons. To be more precise, it is 2,425 kilograms. In turn, the combat load of the Tu-95MS is about 21 tons, or more precisely – 20,850 kilograms. That is, according to the logic of things, one Tu-95MS can carry 8 Kh-101 missiles. According to the logic of things… yes. The fact is that the initial design loading weight of the Tu-95 was 5 tons,” the expert emphasized.

According to Kovalenko, there was no fundamental change in the architecture of this strategic aircraft during its entire existence. It was modernized and improved, but these changes did not affect the architecture. In fact, the architecture of the aircraft designed for the load in the late 1940s has not undergone major changes.

“Thus, all the load on the aircraft, which exceeds 5 tons, puts an increased load on its airframe, power units and other components and is, to put it mildly, not useful. And in the case of an aircraft that has spent its engine resource another 10 20 years ago It is only in beautiful pictures that you can see a Tu-95MS with 8 Kh-101 missiles and still keep in mind what is in its belly, and in practice none of them with such a load now take off. especially for long distances , especially for the performance of combat tasks, when the load from the launch increases many times,” Kovalenko continued.

The expert notes that now, when Russia is forced to move its planes beyond the 1,000-kilometer zone from the border with Ukraine, they must fly a much greater distance to launch than before, which sometimes exceeds 1.5 thousand km. Some of the airfields to which aviation was diverted are 6.5 thousand km from Ukraine.

“After all, agree, why, with 10 Tu-95MS in the airspace, could Russia at different periods of time carry out from 20 to 40 X-101 launches? Yes, yes, yes, the problem of accumulating the necessary ammunition, which I always wrote about. they had such a problem earlier, in March, for example? When the Tu-95MS gliders were more or less stable, and the motor resource of the power units was not developed, they could load them to the limit of their capabilities. Now they are at the limit of all indicators and any disrespect can end in disaster,” Kovalenko added.

At the same time, the observer recalled that “we have never observed a one-time launch of 176 Kh-101 missiles, which is a load of 8 missiles on 22 combat-capable Tu-95MS, even when these missiles were not in short supply.” He explains this by the fact that the resource of the Tu-95MS does not allow them to put such a load on them.

“In the current conditions, every extra ton of weight on the Tu-95MS produces even more of its resource, and it is for this reason that they have long used them sparingly with two, maximum four Kh-101 missiles, which also has a significant impact on the efficiency of their strikes on Ukraine. In turn, the year 2022 had a significant impact on the indicators of wear and tear of the airframe and power units of these aircraft, as a result of which I can assume that in 2023 their general condition will reach a critical-catastrophic indicator, which is also in our favor,” he summarized Kovalenko.

Problems with aviation in Russia

The head of the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, Kyrylo Budanov, said that the Russians faced a problem with the production of motor resources (engines for airplanes). The occupiers are trying to reduce their wear and tear.

The head of GUR noted that there is no production of strategic aircraft in Russia. It uses Soviet aircraft, which are constantly extended and modernized.

Earlier, military expert Oleksandr Kovalenko noted that the aviation resource of the Russian troops for launching missile strikes on Ukraine is extremely limited. According to him, Russian occupiers use Tu-95MS aircraft to launch Kh-101 missiles, and Tu-22M3s are often used to launch Kh-22. Kovalenko stated that there are only 22 combat-capable Tu-95MS aircraft in Russia, the rest are either being upgraded or repaired.