During the large-scale combined attack on November 17, the Russian Federation deployed strategic bombers Tu-160, which is a rare occurrence. According to reports from the Air Force Command, the enemy used 7 of these aircraft to launch cruise missiles, along with 16 Tu-95MS, collectively firing about 80 missiles of the X-555 and X-101 types.
This marked their first combat use against Ukraine in 1.5 years, or to be precise, 550 days. The last time the RF struck Ukraine using Tu-160 was on May 18, 2023, when only two such aircraft were involved, launching 22 cruise missiles X-101/X-555 alongside 8 Tu-95MS.
Since then, Tu-160 appeared only once in reports, when on July 5, they were spotted near launch pads over the Caspian Sea, but no actual launches took place. Additionally, these aircraft have been utilized very sparingly during these 550 days.
Throughout 2024, the so-called RF Ministry of Defense has only reported their flights twice - during the "Ocean-2024" exercises in mid-September 2024 and in February. Thus, for the entire year of 2024, only four flights have been confirmed.
From June 2023 to December 31, they were mentioned four times. Such limited activity is attributed to Moscow conserving the resources of these planes, of which the number is significantly restricted. Overall, the RF's "VKS" consists of approximately 15 Tu-160, and it is uncertain if all are in flying condition.
Moreover, some of them are undergoing modernization to the Tu-160M level, and the RF is significantly obscuring the actual number of aircraft that have been updated. This is why the Kremlin's overall plan to increase their number to 20 units by completing aircraft from fuselages leftover from the Soviet era is at least questionable.
It is also worth noting how many strategic bombers the enemy deployed for the strike on November 17 - 23. In the event of full loading, 7 Tu-160 could have launched 84 cruise missiles, and 16 Tu-95MS could have launched 96-128, meaning the total volley could have exceeded 200 cruise missiles. Instead, approximately 80 were launched. This indicates that the aircraft were not fully loaded, which again may suggest an attempt to conserve the missile carrier resources.