Ukrainian Navy Reports Six Su-34M Bombers Hit at Borisoglebsk by Long Neptune Missiles

Ukraine’s Navy says a Neptune strike hit six Su-34M bombers at Borisoglebsk airfield; Zelensky says four Su-34s were destroyed. Russia has not confirmed it.

Russian Aerospace Forces Su-34 Fighter-Bomber. A Su-34 taxis at the MAKS-2015 airshow in Zhukovsky on August 25, 2015; file photo, not one of the aircraft at Borisoglebsk.Photo: Vitaly V. Kuzmin via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped; crops shared under the same licence)

Karmalla AhmedDirector and Chief EditorOctober 15, 20263 min read

The Ukrainian Navy has reported striking the Borisoglebsk military airfield in Russia’s Voronezh region with the Neptune missile system on the night of October 14, stating that six Su-34M fighter-bombers, one of Russia’s main platforms for glide bomb strikes on Ukrainian positions, were hit along with flight support equipment. Ukraine’s General Staff stated that all six had been damaged to varying degrees, while President Volodymyr Zelensky stated that four Su-34s were destroyed and two more hit, naming the extended-range Long Neptune as the weapon used. Neither the Russian Ministry of Defence nor local officials have acknowledged damage at the base, and the figures have not been independently verified. Should even the lower figure hold, a single night’s strike would have destroyed roughly as many Su-34s as Russia is estimated to have received from industry in all of 2026.

A grey FAB-500T bomb fitted with folding UMPK glide wings hangs under the wing of a blue Su-34 — FAB-500T Bomb With UMPK Glide Kit Under a Su-34. A FAB-500T fitted with a UMPK kit under the wing of a Su-34 at an unspecified airfield, in a frame from Russian Ministry of Defence video dated June 2, 2025.Photo: Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0 (cropped)

Voronezh governor Alexander Gusev stated that air defences in the region had intercepted 33 drones and what he described as “several jet-powered aerial targets” overnight, with falling debris damaging outbuildings at private homes and a car in the city of Voronezh, although he made no reference to the airfield. Residents of Borisoglebsk reported explosions and a large fire visible from several parts of the town, and satellite images circulated by Ukrainian monitoring channels on October 15 reportedly showed damage to an aircraft parking area, with open-source analysts assessing that at least four Su-34s were likely destroyed. The base lies around six kilometres east of the town and roughly 370 kilometres from the front line, and is reported to host Su-34 bombers alongside Su-35S and Su-30SM fighters, having previously been targeted by Ukrainian drones in October 2024.

Pilots walk across an apron past parked blue Su-34 bombers numbered 10 and 35, with a fuel truck at left — Russian Su-34 Fighter-Bombers on a Flight Line. Su-34s and aircrew on an apron at an unnamed Russian Aerospace Forces base during a bomber exercise on January 17, 2018; file photo released by the Russian Ministry of Defence, not taken at Borisoglebsk.Photo: Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0 (cropped)

The Neptune was developed as a ground-launched anti-ship cruise missile and came to prominence in April 2022 when it was used to sink the Black Sea Fleet flagship Moskva, with the Long Neptune variant using a lengthened and widened fuselage to reach a range reported at around 1,000 kilometres. The Borisoglebsk strike formed part of a wider overnight campaign in which Zelensky also reported hits on a drone storage and launch site in the Oryol region and a target in the Black Sea, and followed Kiev’s decision to resume strikes on Russian refineries only a week after U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the war a strategic stalemate. It is far from the first Ukrainian claim against Russian aviation deep in the rear, with the Unmanned Systems Forces having earlier reported hits on two Su-57 fighters and a Su-34 at Shagol airfield in the Chelyabinsk region, around 1,700 kilometres from the border.

A camouflaged Ukrainian truck carrying four tilted Neptune missile canisters stands on a grassy field — Ukrainian USPU-360 Launcher of the Neptune Missile System. A launcher with four canisters during Neptune trials in Ukraine in May 2020; file photo of the standard Neptune, not the Long Neptune.Photo: Vitalii Panchyshyn / ArmyInform via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0 (cropped)

The Su-34 has been among the most heavily used Russian combat aircraft of the war, serving as the primary platform for UMPK glide kits which convert unguided FAB series bombs into stand-off weapons, with the Russian Defence Ministry having confirmed their use from the type in May 2023. The modernised Su-34M adds improved avionics and reconnaissance systems, which United Aircraft Corporation has claimed doubles the original variant’s combat potential, and has reportedly been integrated with heavier munitions including the FAB-3000. The type is built solely at the Novosibirsk Aircraft Plant named after Chkalov, which according to estimates by the Ukrainian outlet Defense Express delivered around 18 airframes in 2025 and only four to five so far in 2026, typically handed over in batches of two or three.