Shaykovka Air Base (80445116)
54°15'N 34°20'E
Shaikovka [also given variously as Kirov Shaykovka [USG], Anisovo Gorod, Anisovo Gorodishche, Shaykovo, Shajkovka, Gorodische, Chaikovka] is a class 1 military airfield 17 kilometers north of the city of Kirov. in the Kirovsky district in the west of the Kaluga region , near the Smolensk region. The runway 16/34 is 2,500 meters (8,200 ft) long, and surfaced in concrete.
Russia appears to have four operational Backfire bases: Olenegorsk Air Base on the Kola Peninsula (all naval aviation is now under the tactical air force) and Shaykovka Air Base near Kirov in Kaluzhskaya Oblast near Belarus in the Western Military District (many of the Backfires intercepted over the Baltic Sea in recent months have been from Shaykovka); Belaya in Irkutsk Oblast in the Central Military District; and Alekseyevka near Mongokhto in Khabarovsk Oblast in the Eastern Military District. A fifth base – Soltsy Air Base in Novgorod Oblast in the Western Military District – is thought to have been disbanded.
Attacks on Russian airfields by Ukrainian forces destroyed two TU-22M bombers and damaged two more, Ukraine’s intelligence chief said 24 August 2023. The United Kingdom’s military intelligence also said that Russia was likely to have lost a nuclear-capable TU-22M3 supersonic long-range bomber in an attack on the Soltsy military airfield in the Novgorod region. “Two were destroyed, two were damaged. Two cannot be repaired,” Ukraine intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov said in a TV interview for the Ukrainian service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Budanov said a fifth Russian aircraft may have been hit in the attacks. “These were people who carried out certain tasks from the Russian territory,” he said of the attackers who had destroyed the planes. Russian officials reported drone attacks on the Soltsy airfield on 20 August 2023 and Shaykovka airfield in the Kaluga region on 22 August 2023. Russia said that one warplane was damaged during the first attack.
The Shaikovka airfield is located in the western part of the Kaluga region near the Smolensk and Bryansk regions, about 200 km from the border with Ukraine. The 52nd Guards Heavy Bomber Aviation Regiment is stationed there. The Bryansk region borders on Ukraine. Since the start of the Russian invasion in the spring 2022, explosions have been heard in the Bryansk region more than once.
The airfield was built by 1937, when the 13th Separate High-Speed Bomber Aviation Squadron of the Air Forces of the Belorussian Military District with Tupolev SB bombers was stationed there. As of 2020, the 52nd Heavy Bomber Regiment of the 22nd Guards Heavy Bomber Division was still reported resident at the base flying Tu-22M3 Backfires. In 2021 Tu-22M3 Backfires from the base forward deployed to Russian bases in Syria for operations and exercises in the region.
The Shaykovka base in Kaluga, where the Tu-22M3s are stationed, was hit in August 2023. Like Nizhny Novgorod's Soltsy, Shaykovka is not equipped with any shelters. On August 21, at about 8 am, an UAF drone attempted to attack the Shaikovka military airfield. It was noticed in time and shot down. According to media reports, it was a civilian copter, retrofitted with IEDs and a reinforced battery. After he was shot down, a fire started on the territory, which was extinguished on their own, without the involvement of rescuers from the Ministry of Emergency Situations. According to preliminary information, there were no casualties or damage.
The military intelligence of Ukraine claimed responsibility for the drone attack on the Shaikovka airfield in the Kaluga region, writes the Ukrainian edition of Liga.net. Russian Telegram channels reported that the drone was shot down, but one aircraft could have been damaged in the attack. The representative of the Main Directorate of Intelligence (GUR) of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, Andriy Yusov, in a commentary to Liga.net, stated that as a result of the attack, allegedly “at least one aircraft was damaged.”
“There are people who, in coordination with the GUR, have completed their tasks. They came from central Russia, worked out and successfully returned, respectively, ”says Yusov.
The drone attack on the Shaikovka airfield was reported by the telegram channels Baza, Mash and Rybar. According to Baza , a kamikaze drone fell on the airfield on Monday morning, August 21. According to preliminary information, as a result of the fall, “an unused aircraft located at the airfield” was damaged, the channel said. Mash writes that the Ukrainian UAV fell on the territory of the airfield at about eight in the morning. It was allegedly "a civilian copter, retrofitted with IEDs and a reinforced battery." The drone was "spotted in time and shot down," the report said.
The Rybar Telegram channel informs that a “civilian copter equipped with explosives and a reinforced battery” was used for the attack. “The launch was carried out from the territory of Russia by a saboteur – earlier, the Soltsy military airfield in the Novgorod region was attacked in the same way,” the channel claims.
A crater formed at the site of the drone’s fall, a fire broke out, which was extinguished without the involvement of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, Mash notes. Previously, there were no casualties or destruction. The governor of the Kaluga region, Vladislav Shapsha, previously reported that an UAV attack was repelled in the Kirov region in the morning. There were no casualties or damage, Shapsha noted. Separately, he did not mention the Shaikovka airfield.
By 25 August 2023, employees of the FSB and the Ministry of Internal Affairs began combing the area near the Shaikovka airfield in the Kaluga region, which was subjected to massive attacks by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). According to the Baza telegram channel, in the past week alone, several UAV attacks had carried out on the airfield at once. The security forces believe that drone-launching equipment may be hidden in its vicinity. Representatives of government agencies have increased their groupings in the area and united in search teams to identify saboteurs and caches around the airfield, designed to carry out attacks and launch drones. Kamikaze drones attacked Shaikovka repeatedly. One of the drones fell right on the territory of the airfield and damaged the aircraft. Other results of the attacks are not reported. It is known that one of the drones launched in the airport area was of a helicopter type.
Shaikovka - a railway station as part of the Kirovsky district of the Kaluga region , is part of the rural settlement Village Vypolzovo . Population - 12 people. (2010). At the airfield, there is a military camp assigned to the settlement of Shaikovka . It consists of two parts, called "Old Town" and "New Town". The latter was built in 1992 by a Finnish construction organization for Russian troops withdrawing from Europe after the collapse of the USSR. The new town includes about 19 residential five-story buildings, a hospital, a school, a kindergarten, a hotel, a canteen, an officer's house, a post office and shops.
Several military units are based in the military camp, including military unit 33310 (former military unit 06987-A) and military unit 26219 (Repair and Technical Base (RTB)). In the period from 1990 to 1998, fighter aircraft ( MiG-29 ) and transport aircraft were also based in Shaikovka. Not far from the village flows a small river Uzhat with a deep floodplain and ravines. Beautiful nature with a mixed forest of central Russia. Defensive trenches and bunkers from the time of the Great Patriotic War have been preserved on the ground.
On the eve of the war, in the spring of 1941, the 1st heavy bomber regiment of the 42nd long-range bomber division was redeployed to the Shaikovka airfield. The regiment was armed with TB-3 aircraft. With the outbreak of war, the regiment flew to operational airfields, but already on June 23, two squadrons returned to the base airfield. Also, planes of the 3rd heavy bomber regiment flew to Shaikovka . The airfield was held by the Germans from October 1941 to August 1943. Being an important strategic object, it was bombed several times by Soviet long-range aircraft. Near the airfield there was a camp of Soviet prisoners of war.
By 1959, the airfield was reconstructed and the 52nd Guards Heavy Bomber Aviation Regiment flew to it . The regiment was armed with new Tu-16 bombers. As of 1961, the 52nd Guards was based in the Shaikovka garrison. TBAP, 1st AE from the 43rd TsPB and PLS and a separate AE of the air defense troops, all on Tu-16. In 1967, the 52nd TBAP began retraining on the Tu-16 in the version of missile carriers, in 1969 the first practical launch of the KSR-2 rocket was completed.
From April to October 1971 , the 234th Guards Proskurov Fighter Aviation Regiment ( 234 GIAP ) was based at the Shaikovka airfield (in connection with the repair of the runway of the Kubinka airfield ). On May 30, 1966, Shaikovka, during the election tour , was visited by the first cosmonaut Yu. A. Gagarin. 1966, a TVVAUL graduate Dzhokhar Dudayev [later the first President of the Chechen Republic] arrived in Shaikovka for further service. He served as an assistant ship commander. Here he met his future wife Alevtina Kulikova [also reported as Dzhokhar Dudayev], a native of Shaikovka.
In 1982, the 52nd regiment was re-equipped with the Tu-22M2. As of 1998 Tu-22M3 bombers were stationed at airbases in Soltsy and Shaykovka.
During the war in South Ossetia in August 2008 , one Tu - 22M3 aircraft was shot down by a Georgian air defense unit, presumably by means of the Buk air defense system, sold to Georgia by Ukraine shortly before the armed conflict . Subsequently , it turned out that the aircraft was piloted by a crew from Shaikovk.
In 2009, the regiment and support units were reorganized into the 6951st Guards. AvB (1st category) military unit 40444, 48 Tu-22MZ are in service, 24 of them are in storage. The aviation commandant's office at the Soltsy airfield, military unit 40444-A, was included in the air base. On December 1, 2010, the 6951st Guards Aviation Base (1st category) was reorganized into the air group (3 squadrons) of the 6950th AVB, AVB control at the Engels-1 airfield. On August 1, 2015, the air group was reorganized into the 52nd Guards Heavy Bomber Aviation Regiment (second formation).
Missile-carrying bombers are deployed at the Shaikovka military airfield. In March 2021, a catapult went off on the ground in a Tu-22M bomber at the airfield. Due to the insufficiently high altitude, the parachutes did not have time to open, and three pilots "received injuries incompatible with life". One of the dead was the commander of an aviation regiment, who was part of the crew in the place of the instructor.
On June 27, 2022, at approximately 16:00, Tu-22M3 pilot officers of the 52nd Guards Heavy Bomber Aviation Regiment launched two missile attacks on the Amstor shopping center in Kremenchug with X-22 missiles during the Russian military invasion of Ukraine , during which about 20 civilians, more than 59 were injured, and about 40 people were missing. World leaders and organizations called the actions of the Russian Federation another war crime and noted: "Indiscriminate attacks on innocent civilians are a war crime. Russian President Putin and those responsible will be held accountable".
On October 7, 2022, during the Russian Invasion of Ukraine, a drone attack was carried out on the air base, as a result of which two Tu-22M bombers were seriously damaged. “There are no casualties. The airfield infrastructure and equipment were not damaged. No job hazards. An investigative team is working on the spot to establish the causes and circumstances of the incident,” said . Governor Vladislav Shapsha.
In Russia, on 25 August 2023 Kyiv was accused of allegedly trying to carry out a "terrorist attack" on the territory of the Russian Federation with a missile of the improved S-200 anti-aircraft complex. Russian Telegram channels wrote that the target was the Shaykovka airfield in the Kaluga region.
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