Russia stole dozens of Tu-95MS bombers from Kazakhstan and skillfully covered its tracks, – media

The number of stolen aircraft was higher than what the Russian armed forces themselves had at the time.

The story of how Russia seized strategic bombers Tu-160 and Tu-95MS from Ukraine as payment for gas debts is not news to anyone. But in the 1990s, Russia pulled off a much larger scam that few people know about.

This is reported by the Ukrainian publication Defense Express . Thus, in 1992, Moscow stole dozens of aircraft from Kazakhstan. The Kremlin resorted to a cunning scheme to replace the bombers with much older aircraft.

“The scale of the story is that the Russians fraudulently stole up to 40 Tu-95MS aircraft from Kazakhstan, and this was 1.5 times more than the Russian armed forces had at that time. It should be noted that this story remained little known, in particular because the Russians skillfully “covered their tracks” here,” the material says.

In February 1992, Russia stopped mass production of Tu-95MS bombers – they were assembled at the Kuibyshev Aviation Plant. The aggressor country no longer had the resources to manufacture these aircraft.

At that time, the Russian armed forces had between 22 and 27 Tu-95MS aircraft in their fleet. There were also 45 Tu-95K-22s, which carry the Kh-22 missiles, and seven Tu-95K training aircraft.

“No matter how paradoxical it may sound, Kazakhstan had the largest fleet of Tu-95MS at its disposal at that time, in the amount of 40 units, of which 27 belonged to the MS-16 variant (with the possibility of external suspension of missiles) and 13 to the MS-6 variant (with suspension only in the bomb bay). At that time, our country had 21 Tu-95MS in the MS-6 variant,” the authors explain.

At that time, all Tu-95MSs available in Kazakhstan belonged to the 79th Heavy Bomber Aviation Division. However, Kazakhstan did not have full control over these aircraft, which played into Moscow’s hands.

There are several versions of how Russia pulled off the large-scale theft of aircraft. At that time, the crews of strategic bombers of the Russian Federation and Kazakhstan were supposed to conduct regular flights between the Semipalatinsk-2 and Ukrainka airfields, and call signs were “exchanged” along the route.

According to one version, when the planes landed in Russia, older Tu-95Ks flew back instead. Moscow pulled this off, taking advantage of the loyalty of the country’s strategic aviation pilots. When they saw what had happened, it was too late to “rewind.”

The second version says that the Russians simply did not let foreign planes land on Russian territory. However, according to Russian data, “only” 16 to 18 such planes were stolen. So how they managed to get away with more than 20 more is a question.

It is also not known exactly how many aircraft migrated to Kazakhstan, and whether they were training Tu-95Ks or the newer Tu-95K-22s (X-22 carriers). The fate of these aircraft is also a mystery.

“The story outlined above may even look “hazy”, but it tells us how the Russian Federation obtained the “core” of its strategic aviation through theft and did not suffer any punishment for it,” the publication states.

(C)UNIAN 2025