Overnight October 31 several explosions rocked the "Veretye" air base in the Pskov Oblast, russian federation. It resulted in two Ka-52 helicopters completely destroyed, and two more severely damaged, Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence reports.
The intelligence service says all the details of the incident are still being clarified, but the russians have already started showing off, raised troops on alarm looking for saboteurs, investigating the case.
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According to the publicly available data, before the russian full-scale invasion, there was the 15th Army Aviation Brigade of the 6th Aerospace and Air Defense Army of the Western Military District stationed on this base in February 2022.
The Military Balance 2021 says there were only 24 helicopters on this air base at the end of 2021, which means russians probably suffered a loss of 15% of aircraft at disposal of the mentioned brigade in the incident. And those helicopters were not even in the air as it happened.
Some sources say these damaged helicopters were undergoing repair at the "Veretye" base. Apparently, they were meant to go back to the frontline in Ukraine after the work was done, to provide air support for russian occupation forces. Particularly those currently stationed in Kherson region – the key effort of the Ukrainian counteroffensive operation.
Soon enough russian troops there will be very "grateful" to their comrades from army aviation for losing four valuable and deficient assets of military equipment. Estimates by the Oryx community tell us that russians have lost at least 23 Ka-52 helicopters so far in Ukraine. The number is based on only those vehicles that were confirmed by visual evidence. This amount makes up about 25% of the entire Ka-52 park before the invasion, estimated at 90 vehicles in total.
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