Russia's painted silhouette bombers as decoys against Ukraine drones

Russia has painted silhouettes of Tupolev Tu-95 Bear strategic bombers on a key airbase used in strikes against Ukraine to act as decoys to confuse incoming armed drones, according to new satellite imagery. The Engels-2 base, located about 370 miles northeast of the Ukrainian border, has been targeted on several occasions. The bombers which can carry nuclear weapons have launched cruise missile attacks on Ukraine. In a classic example of Russia’s long-used deception techniques known from the Soviet Union era as “maskirovka”, two of the three Tu-95MS Bear-H bombers are just painted onto the tarmac in a parking bay at the base. To add to the deception, the Russians have piled vehicle tyres onto the wings and fuselage of the fake bombers, copying the method used for the real TU-95s to try and protect them from Ukrainian kamize drones. Russian Su-34 fighter jets have also been protected by tyres positioned on top when parked at bases. The satellite imagery was taken three days ago by Planet Labs, a US company based in San Francisco, and published by The War Zone defence website. Ukraine has increasingly been hitting targets deep inside Russia, and the Engels strategic bomber base in Saratov oblast (region) has been one of several singled out for drone strikes. A Tu-95 bomber was damaged by an armed drone attack at the same base in December last year. In August a Ukrainian drone strike destroyed a long-range supersonic Tu-22M Backfire bomber parked on the tarmac at Soltsy-2 airbase in the Novgorod region south of St Petersburg. Russia’s three bombers used to launch cruise missiles in the war in Ukraine, the Bears, Backfires and Tu-160 Blackjacks, are frequently left out in the open at bases, and not housed in hangars, making them vulnerable to air attacks. As Planet Labs has proven, painted silhouettes of bombers has not fooled satellites which can distinguish between three-dimensional and two-dimensional objects from space. However, Russia’s military have a long tradition of deploying maskirovka, and the Russian air force must have judged it was worth attempting a painted decoy version of the strategic bomber to make drone targeting more challenging. In the first and second world wars, both the Allies and the Axis constructed fake tanks made out of wood to cause confusion. In another form of deception used by Russia prior to the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, the freighters carrying ballistic missiles in the hold to the Caribbean island had trucks, tractors and combine harvesters on the deck to give the impression agricultural equipment was being shipped to the Cubans.