Tu-95MS bomber crashed in Russia, killing eight officers. Some helped organize missile strikes on Ukraine.
Eight Russian officers were killed when a Tu-95MS missile-carrying bomber crashed in the Amur region on September 29. The independent Russian news outlet Mediazona published the full list of those on board.
The plane crashed near the village of Krasnoyarovo. Initial reports said six crew members were killed during a training flight from the Ukrainka air base.
A post about the unveiling of a memorial to the dead pilots later appeared on the “Rural News” community page for Seryshevo, a village in the Amur region where the Ukrainka air base is located. OSINT analyst duke garland noticed the post. Mediazona verified the information and found that all eight of those killed had served in strategic aviation.
Six of those killed were part of the main Tu-95MS crew, while two others may have been on board as inspectors or passengers. Most of those killed had previously served in Engels, in the Saratov region, before being transferred to the Amur region, according to Mediazona. Three of them — Major Andrey Lobanov, Major Andrey Gerasimov, and Lieutenant Colonel Fyodor Pavlyukov — were named by the Ukrainian project “Book of Executioners” as participants in, or organizers of, missile strikes on Ukrainian territory.
Crew:
- Crew commander, commander of the Tu-95 squadron, Major Andrey Nikolaevich Lobanov, 40
- Co-pilot, Senior Lieutenant Vladislav Vladimirovich Moskovskikh, 31
- Navigator, Captain Artur Araratovich Yenokyan, 30
- Navigator-operator, Lieutenant Mikhail Mikhailovich Kotyshev, 23
- Flight engineer, Captain Sergey Alexandrovich Monsevich, 47
- Radio operator, Major Vladimir Yuryevich Kelip, 55.
Also on board were:
- Lieutenant colonel, deputy regiment commander for flight training, Fyodor Viktorovich Pavlyukov, 43
- Lieutenant colonel, commander of the Tu-95 squadron, Andrey Vladimirovich Gerasimov, 36.
Following the SBU’s Operation Spiderweb, the Ukrainka air base became one of the main bases for long-range aviation. As The Insider, an independent Russian investigative outlet, notes, a standard combat sortie into Ukrainian territory now takes about 23 hours. The bombers are first flown to the Engels or Olenya airfields near the Ukrainian border, from where the missiles are launched, and the planes later return to the Far East.
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Operation Spiderweb
On June 1, 2025, SBU drones attacked military airfields in four regions of Russia. Ukraine claimed that the strikes hit the Olenya air base in the Murmansk region, Belaya air base in the Irkutsk region, Ivanovo-Severny in the Ivanovo region, and Dyagilevo in the Ryazan region. The drones were hidden in the roofs of prefabricated houses that were transported across Russia by truck. The drones were activated remotely when the trucks were near the military airfields. Ukrainian authorities said the truck drivers did not know about the hidden drones.