On February 28, the Russian army insidiously used a Tu-22M3 strategic bomber-missile carrier against civilians in Kharkov, firing about 16 air-to-surface missiles into the city from the territory of the Belgorod region, that is, without even crossing the border of Ukraine.
According to the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the Tu-22M3 made four calls at the rate of Besedino (Kursk region) – Belgorod. As a result of airstrikes, dozens of Kharkiv residents were killed, including children.
Unfortunately, it is very difficult for our military to cover the sky in this region, since the aggressor country destroyed part of the Ukrainian air defense system with ballistic and cruise missiles.
Facts ICTV has collected basic information about the deadly Tu-22M3 bomber.
What is Tu-22M3
The Tu-22M is a Soviet long-range supersonic bomber with variable wing geometry. Designed to destroy sea and land targets with cruise missiles, aerial bombs, including those with nuclear warheads.
This is the development of OKB O. M. Tupolev, produced at the Kazan Aviation Plant named after Gorbunov.
In operation since 1974 to this day. The Tu-22M3 made its first flight on June 20, 1977, and since 1978 it has been put into mass production, which was discontinued in 1993.
The main armament of the bomber is the X-22N anti-ship hypersonic cruise missile with a lightweight high-explosive-cumulative warhead capable of making a hole in a ship of 22 square meters. m and a depth of up to 12 m, as well as the Kh-22PSI Maidan missile with a megaton warhead and a launch range of almost 500 km.
It can also carry free-falling bombs, with one salvo capable of covering an area equal to 35 football fields.
Tu-22M3 can hit a small structure with a single bomb from a 10-kilometer height.
At the same time, the aircraft had constant problems from the very beginning of operation due to engineering imperfections, which is why Russian pilots still die very often.
In 2018, the Russian Federation created a modernized version of this aircraft – Tu-22M3M, expanding its combat potential.
Russia has used Tu-22M3 bombers in Syria, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Georgia and now in the war against Ukraine .
By the way, in the war against Georgia, a group of Russian Tu-22M3s carried out targeted air strikes on the ammunition depots of the Georgian army, and also bombed airfields. After the Georgian air defenses shot down one Tu-22M3 aircraft on the very first day, Russia did not use them until the end of the war.
Tu-22M2 in Ukraine
After the collapse of the USSR, Ukraine also received some of these bombers: 22 Tu-22M2 aircraft and 60 Tu-22M3 aircraft.
However, before 2003, 19 of them were transferred to Russia, four are now in museums, and the rest were disposed of.
That is, today only the Russian Federation operates these aircraft.
