Most importantly, the presence of Kh-101 and Kh-55/555 missiles at the airfield was confirmed.
However, it remains unclear why the Russians still rely on Engels for operations against Ukraine when they have Olenya. They can refuel missile carriers in the air and reach launch areas from the north without using Engels at all.
Perhaps the enemy received orders to disperse their forces, having learned that we now possess enough delivery vehicles capable of reaching Olenya and breaching its air defences.
Distance is no longer an effective shield — by September 2024, we had already reached Olenya twice in two consecutive days.
Since then, our strikes have become more intense, our delivery range has expanded, and our list of targets has grown. We have hit hydrocarbon transshipment facilities, refineries, compressor stations, and production sites for gunpowder, acetone, alcohol, and UAVs.
At this point, it’s hard to find a strategic target we haven’t struck — the strategic arsenal, the Rosrezerva plant, Russia’s oldest gunpowder factory, its two largest Black Sea ports, and Rosneft’s Kavkazskaya station, which burned for six days.
The Russians have recognised this threat. By December last year, they began reinforcing the Engels airfield — digging trenches, constructing caponiers, and surrounding ammunition stockpiles with berms.
If we can strike both runways and airbase warehouses, there’s no point in keeping all their forces at a single distant airfield. Dispersing their aircraft and missile stockpiles across multiple bases, taxiing aircraft during alarms (as drones cannot retarget mid-flight), and using caponiers to minimise missile losses are all defensive measures.
Our analysis of satellite imagery likely helped us track their movements and identify most of their stockpiles.
But pinpointing missile caches near runways — on the ground and inside the workshop where they were assembled — required a higher level of precision. Timing the strike to hit the facility when the maximum number of missiles was present was key.
The cylindrical area in the centre of the warehouse with four exits was undoubtedly the missile assembly shop.
There, they brought in 7+ metre, 2.5-tonne missiles, placed them on the ground or onto special trolleys, attached warheads using crane beams, screwed in the fuses, and loaded flight mission data.
A truck would then arrive to transport the missile to its designated bomber.
And then our long-range drones struck.
The majority of the sites — approximately 60% — have been destroyed. In those that survived the strikes, the bunding is severely damaged: both concrete fragments and large pieces of engines that exploded unexpectedly must have penetrated even deep layers of the ground.
There is a strong chance that there was no detonation, but the rudders, electronics, and other missile components have been torn apart and now require repairs to varying degrees, including major overhauls.
Even if the Russians lost only 20–30 missiles with multiple warheads in the hangar, each missile is worth $13 million. The raid has paid off many times over and must be immediately scaled up on our part.
Additionally, the infrastructure has been rendered inoperative for a long time, and the missile equipment shop has been destroyed. Even without considering the next shift and potential casualties, the shattered windows 12 kilometres away, secondary detonations, the damage to dozens of buildings in surrounding villages, and the evacuation of thousands of people, the cost of this attack for Russia is immense.
And without the possible deaths of the co-pilot and navigator — whose fate is being speculated on through various dubious social media channels — this is like icing on the cake.
Of course, I would like to believe that those sitting on the right side of the plane were only hit by debris and the shock wave, and this is possible in principle. But in our case, it’s simple: if there are no obituaries or official confirmations, then there are no victims.
I believe the Russians brought in CBRN equipment once they realised that windows were shattering 10 kilometres from the airfield and that secondary detonations had made it impossible to fully assess the extent of the damage.
However, the underground shelters for special combat units near Engels almost certainly survived the detonation — 99.9% probability. So, it’s just a minor setback for them, nothing on the scale of Chornobyl.
And then there’s the symbolism, of course. The Russians launch chaotic Shahed drone attacks on Odesa or Kropyvnytskyy, while we carry out a precise, well-coordinated strike on their nuclear triad.
The enemy must understand: making threats about nuclear ash and strikes on London is one thing, but the West has far greater power to hurt Russia than Ukraine alone ever could.
And if two dozen piston-engine drones can now reach Engels, what will happen when someone sends fifty 500-kilogram warheads there — even without any tactical nuclear weapons?
Will there be anything left to threaten with, or will the threat itself be shattered?
Before the ancestors of today’s Russian Federation citizens killed their tsar, slaughtered millions, and starved millions more, the city of Engels was called Pokrovsk — just like ours, which they are now destroying.
It is a pity that their former Pokrovsk did not share the same fate as ours. But we learn very quickly.