(Moscow) – A Ukrainian drone attack on a Russian airbase has exposed critical military weaknesses in Russia’s strategic command, sparking a scandal not over the failure itself, but over the leak of its evidence. The incident, which left a number of Russia’s strategic Tu-95 bombers damaged or destroyed, triggered a public outburst from one of the Kremlin’s most vocal state propagandists, Vladimir Solovyov, who astonishingly demanded that the conscript who filmed the aftermath should be executed.
The drone strike targeted the Belaya airfield in Irkutsk region, deep within Russian territory. Despite heavy air defence measures and distance of over a thousand kilometres, Ukrainian drones reached and struck a key hub of Russia’s nuclear triad. As smoke rose from the ruined aircraft, video footage of the strike’s aftermath began circulating on social media. The Kremlin’s media machine was less concerned with how the drones got through and more enraged that the world had seen the evidence.
On live television, Solovyov unleashed a chilling rant: “Can we shoot this conscript? We should bring this bastard out in front of the line and shoot him as a traitor to the Motherland!” he declared, branding the young soldier who filmed the burning aircraft a traitor. The failure of the air force was thus spun not as a command-level disaster, but as the fault of a soldier with a phone.
This kind of scapegoating has become a pattern in the Russian system, which often chooses to punish the powerless rather than confront high-level failings. While the drone strike damaged key elements of Russia’s nuclear air fleet, including Tu-95 bombers, Russian state media immediately shifted focus to controlling the narrative rather than addressing glaring operational vulnerabilities.
Ukrainian defence officials hailed the strike as a significant blow to the Kremlin’s military arsenal and its symbolic prestige. The drone operation represents one of Ukraine’s deepest penetrations into Russian territory, and its success is both tactical and psychological.
The propagandists’ fury highlights the Kremlin’s growing fear—not of military defeat, but of the world seeing it unfold in real time. The Russian dictatorship continues to suppress transparency, insisting that domestic failures must remain hidden to maintain the illusion of strength.
Meanwhile, in Crimea, the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) confirmed a new underwater attack on the illegal Crimean Bridge. Using over one thousand kilograms of TNT equivalent explosives, Ukrainian agents heavily damaged the underwater structure without civilian casualties. SBU Chief Vasyl Maliuk stated that the Crimean Bridge remains a legitimate military target, used by the Russian occupiers for troop and arms supply.
Amid growing pressure, talks in Istanbul between Russia and Ukraine have yielded minor agreements on prisoner swaps, but little progress toward a ceasefire. The Kremlin remains unwilling to accept peace terms that do not align entirely with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s demands.
