Imagery shows Russian jets sheltered
TLDR
- RFE/RL published before-and-after satellite imagery of shelters at seven Russian and Crimean air bases.1
- Captions contrast 2026 shelters with earlier images of exposed aircraft at Millerovo, Kursk, Morozovsk and Belbek.1
- At Engels, shelters for the strategic bomber fleet were under construction on 28 October 2026.1
RFE/RL published a visual feature on 7 November saying recent satellite imagery captures the reshaping of air bases across Russia and Crimea, as the threat from Ukrainian strikes changes how Moscow houses and protects its military aircraft.1 It pairs 2026 images with older ones of the same sections of seven bases.1
Why it matters: dated before-and-after pairs of the same spot are a simple, checkable way to show a change at a site, and here they document a visible shift from parked aircraft to sheltered ones.1
Driving the news:
- Millerovo: hardened shelters seen on 29 October 2026, against an October 2021 image of exposed jets parked within protective barriers. RFE/RL says the base is less than 20 kilometres from Ukraine's eastern border and was hit with ballistic missiles on 25 February 2022.1
- Kursk Vostochny and Morozovsk: shelters seen on 7 October and 3 August 2026, against exposed aircraft in November 2021 and October 2023. RFE/RL puts Morozovsk around 130 kilometres from the border.1
- Engels: a construction site for shelters for the strategic bomber fleet on 28 October 2026. RFE/RL says Engels has been hit by multiple Ukrainian drone strikes since 2022 and that preparatory work on hangars for the long-range bombers was first spotted in early 2025.1
- Crimea: shelters inside protective barriers at Saky (23 August 2026, against April 2019) and at Belbek (26 August 2026, against a lineup of aircraft in October 2021). RFE/RL says footage of a similar Saky shelter published in June 2025 was described as a "concrete aircraft hangar".1
- Hvardiyske: a section seen on 11 October 2026 and in May 2014. RFE/RL says the base in central Crimea has been extensively refitted as an attack drone launch site.1
The big picture: RFE/RL frames the pattern as an adaptation to Ukrainian drone and missile strikes, with hardened cover replacing open parking at western bases and Crimea.1 The page does not give the imagery provider or say how many aircraft the shelters hold, so what sits inside them cannot be read from the images.1
Single-source note: everything rests on RFE/RL's feature, whose text as retrieved consists of image captions with no named imagery provider. The images were not reviewed here. No independent coverage of this feature was found.