Moscow. July 9. INTERFAX-Two Tu-160 strategic bombers, which are capable of carrying nuclear weapons, flew from the Saratov Region to the Anadyr airfield in Chukotka during the exercises, the Russian Defense Ministry reported on Friday.
Anadyr is a city in the far north-east of Russia, the administrative center of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug. Chukotka in the east has a maritime border with the United States.
"Two crews of Tu-160 strategic missile carriers of the Aerospace Forces performed a flight from the Saratov Region to the Anadyr airfield as part of long-range tactical flight exercises," the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement.
"The flight crew worked out a non-stop flight from the deployment airfield, having overcome about 7 thousand kilometers at the same time. The duration of the flight is a little more than 7 hours, " the military department reported.
"The flight from the deployment point to Chukotka was carried out normally. There were no comments. The tasks that the crews faced for this flight have been completed, " said Lieutenant General Sergei Kobylash, commander of the long-range aviation.
"The flight of Tu-160 crews to the Anadyr airfield is one of the episodes conducted during planned tactical flight exercises with long-range aviation units," he said.
The Tu-160 carried out flights to Chukotka in 2020, 2019 and 2018.
On July 6, the Russian Defense Ministry announced the start of long-range aviation exercises. The maneuvers involved strategic missile carriers-Tu-160 and Tu-95MS bombers. According to the training alert, long-range aviation units were raised in the Saratov, Amur, Irkutsk and Ryazan regions, the military reported.
"During the combat training activities, long-range aviation crews will have to work out the relocation of aircraft equipment to operational airfields, flights with refueling in the air, the combat use of aviation weapons against ground targets at landfills," the Russian Defense Ministry said.
In March of this year, the Russian military reported on exercises in which three nuclear submarines surfaced with a break in the ice in the Arctic, and two MiG-31 long-range interceptor fighters flew to the North Pole in the forward and reverse direction.
In March 2018, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said that"for the first time since Soviet times, anti-submarine aviation flights were carried out across the North Pole to the North American continent." At that time, sources told Interfax that two Russian anti-submarine aircraft accompanied by fighter jets and a tanker aircraft made the flight across the North Pole.
In November 2017, the Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Federation, Valery Gerasimov, said that Russia had increased the intensity of strategic aviation flights to the level that was under the USSR.
"If we compare the achieved indicators with those of the Soviet Union, the intensity of long-range aviation flights is maintained at the same level. At the same time, the raid on the crew of the Tu-160 and Tu-95MS strategic missile carriers increased by 10% per year," Gerasimov said at the time.
