Also known as Tu-22M Backfire, Backfire, Tupolev Tu-26, Tu-26, Tupolev Tu-22M Backfire
bomber aircraft family by Tupolev
via Wikipedia infobox
The Tupolev Tu-22M (Russian: Туполев Ту-22М; NATO reporting name: Backfire) is a supersonic, variable-sweep wing, long-range strategic and maritime strike bomber developed by the Tupolev Design Bureau in the 1960s. The bomber was reported as being designated Tu-26 by Western intelligence at one time. During the Cold War, the Tu-22M was operated by the Soviet Air Forces (VVS) in a missile carrier strategic bombing role, and by the Soviet Naval Aviation (Aviatsiya Voyenno-Morskogo Flota, AVMF) in a long-range maritime anti-shipping role.
The Tu-22M was first used for conventional bombing by the Soviet Union in the Soviet–Afghan War. Russia has flown the Tu-22M on bombing missions in the First Chechen War, Russo-Georgian War, intervention in the Syrian civil war, and Russo-Ukrainian war. On 1 June 2025, Ukraine's Operation Spiderweb drone attack destroyed four Tu-22Ms at Belaya air base.
via Wikidata · CC0
via Wikidata sitelinks · CC0
Discovered by embedding cosine similarity (sentence-transformers MiniLM, 384-dim).