A Russian long-range bomber crashes during training, killing 6 crewmembers

MOSCOW — A Russian nuclear-capable strategic bomber crashed Tuesday on a training mission in the country’s far east, killing six members of its crew, the Defense Ministry said.

The ministry said in a statement that the Tu-95 bomber went down in an unpopulated area in the Amur region, adding that one crewmember survived the crash and was hospitalized with injuries.

The statement said that the bomber wasn’t carrying weapons. A team of investigators has flown to the area to determine the cause of the crash, the ministry said.

The regional administration said in a statement that the plane crashed near the village of Krasnoyarovo on the Zeya River near the border with China. It said the pilots “did all they could to steer the plane away from residential buildings.”

The Tu-95 is a nuclear-capable four-engine turboprop strategic bomber that has been in service since the Cold War times. The Russian military has widely used the big warplane to launch conventionally armed cruise missiles at Ukraine throughout the more than 4 1/2-year conflict.

Some of the Tu-95s of the Russian air force were destroyed or damaged during Ukraine’s “Spiderweb” operation in June 2025 when it used drones covertly launched from trucks to hit several air bases hosting long-range bombers across Russia.