As of the morning of January 21, 2025, at least five Su-25 attack aircraft were spotted at the Engels-2 air base, along with at least two Tu-95MS, two Tu-160, two Tu-22M3 bombers, one Mi-26 helicopter, and one Il-76 transport aircraft.
As of the beginning of December 2024, at least nine Su-34s were spotted at the Engels-2 airfield. This is stated in the relevant posts on X by MT_Anderson OSINT analyst.
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On behalf of Defense Express, we emphasize that the presence of tactical aircraft of the russian Aerospace Forces at this airfield, one of the primary bases for the strategic aviation of the aggressor country, is an unusual development. This helps us understand how to work with open data on russian aviation.
For example, as soon as Su-34s were spotted at Engels-2, speculation emerged that russians had moved these aircraft to such a remote airbase either to "save" them from ATACMS strikes or to perform maintenance work in a safer location. At the same time, the second version fully supported and complemented the first.
This raises the question of why only nine Su-34s were relocated there out of more than 120 aircraft, and what kind of maintenance can be performed on them given that the Engels-2 airfield's infrastructure is designed for strategic aviation.
As for the appearance of Su-25, the situation looks similar. The aircraft of this type could only be seen as a museum exhibit at the Engels air base.
In this case, the question arises as to why russians deployed their attack aircraft at this airfield, given the current strike capabilities of the Ukrainian Defense Forces.
Additionally, there is a hypothesis that russians may have started moving some tactical aircraft to the Engels-2 airfield to create confusion among Ukrainian and Western analysts regarding the current state of tactical aviation or the true condition of their strike aircraft.
However, it is possible that the reason for this atypical relocation of tactical aircraft to one of the primary strategic aviation airfields could be of an entirely different nature.
Earlier Defense Express reported that russia suffers from a strategic aviation crisis, struggling to "reproduce" the Tu-160 and Tu-22M3 at the Kazan Aviation Plant.
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