Analysts are now poring over satellite images and military communications trying to determine the accurate toll on Russia’s strategic bomber force from Ukraine’s surprise drone attack on four Air Force bases Sunday. Ukraine at first said 41 long range bombers, some of them supersonic, were destroyed but that number might be generous. According to the War Zone, on Monday, senior Ukraine officials were only confirming that 13 bombers were destroyed but that might be based on a conservative interpretation of the term. Satellite photos shot Monday over two bases appear to confirm the loss of at least nine bombers, most of them 1950s-vintage Tu-95 Bear turboprop bombers.

Regardless of the exact tally, the attack, which used 117 remotely piloted explosive drones hidden in the rafter spaces of c

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