The Russian Aerospace Forces have deployed Su-35S air superiority fighters to escort Tu-22M3 strategic bombers for a protracted vary flight over the Baltic Sea. The flight was thought of a major present of drive geared toward NATO, and noticed the bombers armed with Kh-32 anti-ship cruise missiles stay within the air for over 5 hours. The Su-35S was developed as an enhanced by-product of the Soviet Su-27 fighter, which had been designed particularly with the aim of escorting Tu-22M strikes throughout Europe from ahead bases in Poland. The disintegration of the Warsaw Pact and absorption of nearly all of Japanese Europe into NATO has considerably lowered Russian ahead basing choices for its fighters and bombers to conduct lengthy vary strikes, though the extension of the Tu-22M’s vary with the event of the M3 variant, an the mixing of longer ranged missiles, has helped compensate for this.
In comparison with the Kh-22 anti-ship missile of the Chilly Conflict period, the brand new Kh-32 advantages from upgraded steering and digital warfare countermeasures programs, an prolonged engagement vary of as much as 1,000 kilometres, and a quicker Mach 5 pace. Though plans to modernise the Tu-22M3 fleet to the M3M customary, or to develop the brand new Tu-22M4 bomber, have been reduce as a consequence of finances shortages, this new armament supplies a revolutionary enchancment for the plane. The Su-35 is especially properly suited to bomber escort missions as a consequence of its very lengthy vary of near 2000 kilometres, which is close to double that of superior Western fighters such a the F-22 and F-35. The fighter integrates a very giant radar, the Irbis-E, which has a 400 kilometre detection vary towards giant plane, permitting it to offer an early warning towards potential threats to the bomber fleet. Just like the Tu-22M3, it is usually able to sustained cruising at supersonic speeds, because it doesn’t require engine afterburners to take action.
The Tu-22M3 was produced from 1989-1997, at roughly the identical time because the Western world’s latest bomber kind the B-2, and serves as a lighter counterpart to the intercontinental vary Tu-160 and Tu-95MS fleets. In September Tu-22M3 bombers had been deployed as a part of the Russian-Belarusian Zapad 2025 navy drills to simulate strikes on enemy targets, with the assaults launched “with the intention of disrupting the management system and destroying essential services.” These strikes included stay hearth bombings on coaching grounds. The bombers had been first fight examined to strike Western, Turkish and Israeli-backed Islamist insurgents in Syria as a part of Russian assist for Syrian counterinsurgency efforts. The plane have since had a very outsized affect within the Ukrainian theatre, with Ukrainian Air Pressure Command spokesman Yury Ignat having singled out the performances of their Kh-22 missiles, which he burdened had been practically not possible to intercept. Ignat in December 2023 said that for the reason that escalation of hostilities between Russia and Ukraine in February 2022, Russian Tu-22M3s had fired roughly 300 Kh-22 and Kh-32 missiles at targets throughout Ukraine, and that Ukrainian air defences had not been capable of intercept a single one.
