10:30 BST
Paul Brown and Thomas Spencer
BBC Verify
Yesterday, we spent a long time poring over new satellite imagery from Planet Labs, which helped us piece together how significant Sunday’s Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian airbases were.
The images of two Russian airbases in north-western and central Russia, taken on Wednesday morning, show at least 12 aircraft damaged or destroyed.
Meanwhile, drone footage, released by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) on Wednesday, showed attacks on these two bases as well as two more targeted elsewhere.
Some of the clearest satellite imagery that we’ve been looking at covers Olenya and Belaya and shows five damaged or destroyed planes at the former and seven at the latter.
For instance, at Olenya – a major Russian airbase in the north-west – the SBU footage shows smoke pouring from three aircraft, identified as Tu-95 strategic bombers.
Image caption,
Satellite images showing destroyed planes on the runway in Olenya
Meanwhile, imagery provided by Planet Labs from Wednesday, shows the entirety of Belaya airbase in Irkutsk Oblast, nearly 3,000km from the Ukrainian border.
It showed three damaged Tu-95s and four Tu-22s (as seen in the below picture) and in various parts of the base.
