LotA Profile picture
Aviation and history geek. Sometimes good at solving scattered and smoking aviation... eh, puzzles.

Nov 12, 2022, 32 tweets

1/It’s long overdue, but here we go – russian aircraft losses in Chernobaivka c. 12-16 of March. Unfortunately I didn't document the sources of all the images, since I didn't plan on publishing this analysis and catalogued it for myself.

2/Saying that, let's begin. Following is the most recent sat imagery of Kherson a/p before 24-Feb-2022 I managed to find. It consists of Esri sat images dated to between Oct-2021 and end of Nov-2021, judging by the already laid asphalt, but lack of markings that appeared in Dec.

3/1st ref photo - before the end of Nov. 2nd ref photo - before the end of Dec. Red numbers on the sat image - Ukr helicopters that remain stationary through Feb-Mar 2022.
rus.lb.ua/economics/2021…
avianews.com/ukraine/2021/1…

4/Blue numbers - Ukr helicopters that either weren't present on the field at the time of the invasion or were moved to alternative locations on the field.
Pay attention - the majority are parked on the south and north-east pads.

5/Capella Space image, dated 6-Mar-2022. It's a bit tricky, by you can positively identify the 12 Ukr helicopters from previous sat image. The rest with the exception of up to 4-5 pieces are safely assumed to be russian. Pay special attention to the enclosed area.

6/Planet Lab image, dated 12-Mar-2022. A very low resolution, but there is visible scorching of the ground and the pads within the green-dash polygon.

7/Part of the larger sat image by Planet Lab dated 15-Mar-2022. We can see the results of an attack that occurred no later than 12-Mar. The scorching matches the 12-Mar sat image. Some of the wrecks are located almost on the exact spots as some of the helis on the 6-Mar image.

8/Another detail that supports the claim that the outlined area served russian helicopters is the dug in support equipment around the west flight control tower (fuel trucks, etc) that wasn't there prior to the invasion.

9/I don't know were the rest of the helicopters, captured on the 6-Mar sat image, were moved to, but if I had to guess, I'd say that something happened between the 6th and the 12th of March that forced the russians to move them, maybe closer to the civilian terminal.

10/And here comes the 15th of March. Planet Labs image. Judging by the video footage from Ukr TB2 ucav, the image was taken sometime after 1252PM, UTC +2, given the time was set correctly.
Reds: Ukr helis that can be seen on 2021 images

11/Greens: suspected as Ukr helicopters that were moved sometime before the invasion or by russian soldiers
Yellows: suspected as ru helicopters
Note, yellow 39-47 were discussed previously and were probably destroyed/damaged no later than 12-Mar
White "A": a fuel truck!

12/Summary so far:
Judging by the lack of impact craters on the ref Maxar image, it was taken before 15-Mar, thus the impacts (between 37 and 38 and behind 36) occurred on or slightly before 15-Mar and 35-38 are probably damaged at this point.

13/29, 30, 45 - were most likely helicopters, but I have some doubt regarding 45.
31, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43 - are certainly destroyed
44, 46 - damaged

14/Moving on. The famous russian "on the ground" video of the results. If I identified correctly the 26 and the 32, the video was recorded sometime after PL's sat image, following the second wave of shelling, but still on the 15th.

15/Meanwhile I'll stick with numbers and later I'll try to identify at least some of them, although this video alone gives away plenty, like Mi-28N (33,34), Mi-28N/UB? (28), Mi-24/35 (36), Mi-8 (25,35)

16/Next image. Unfortunately, this is an example of undocumented source, but I think this image was made by Planet Labs. Anyway, the date is 16-Mar and the hour is given as 0510. Although I can't tell if it's UTC+2 or +0, you can see it's sunrise.
27,28,37 towed away

17/Second wave seemed to cause additional losses.
Here we can see 23,24,26,32 join the certain losses. 25 is probably damaged.
White "A" is an exploded fuel truck I've marked and mentioned earlier.

18/Maxar sat image. No earlier than midday of the 16th and no later than the 21st of March. 33 and 34 Mi-28N also towed away.

19/Another "sourceless" image, dated 21-Mar. "Clean up" is complete. No more aircraft destroyed, damaged or otherwise near the civilian terminal.

20/Maxar sat image dated 07-Apr. No visible presence of ru aviation on the airfield. Clean up is complete on both the north-west pads and the civilian terminal.

21/Quantitative summary of ru losses in Chornobaivka:
23,24,26,29,30,31,32,39,40,41,42,43 – destroyed (12)
25 – badly damaged (1)
27,28,33,34,35,36,37,38,44,46 – damaged to some extent (10)
45 – unidentified
Correction: I should've defined the period 7-16 of March.
@Rebel44CZ

22/Forgot to mention, you'd need to expand the sat images outside of twitter to see the details and my annotations, since twitter still doesn't allow to zoom in.
I'll continue this thread later with identification attempts.

23/I'm far from being perfectly sure, but let's try. Ru helis that were hit no later than 12-Mar (likely on 7-Mar).
Let's start with the obvious - 45 is not a helicopter, but some kind of a truck.
44 & 46 are Ka-52's (possibly damaged).
47 is Mi-8 (probably undamaged).

24/39-43 are much more tricky.
43 is either Mi-8 or Mi-24, judging by the horizontal stabilizers, but is much wider compared to the Ukr Mi-24 parked to the east, so naturally my bet is Mi-8.
Compared side by side, the tail booms of 39,40,42&43 are nearly the same length,

25/so probably Mi-8's as well.
41 can be anything, i.e., Mi-8/24/28.
However, the safest bet would be to classify 39-43 as Mi-8/24/28 altogether.
And yes, when I say Mi-8, 24 or 28 I imply all their sub-variants.

26/Civilian terminal 15/16-Mar. Based on the video (#14,#15) we know the following with high degree of certainty:
33,34 - Mi-28N
28 - Mi-28NM/UB? (mast mounted antenna is visible on both the video and the sat image, although poorly)
36 - Mi-24
25,35 - Mi-8

27/Referencing the previously identified helis and comparing the shadow patterns on the sat image it's possible to identify the following:
32 - Mi-28
26 - Mi-8
27 - Mi-28NM/UB? (although could be N)
37,38 - Mi-24
23,24 - Ka-52 (size comparison and rotor config)
29,30,31 - unknown

Qualitative summary:
Destroyed:
2 x Ka-52
1 x Mi-8
1 x Mi-28
5 x Mi-8/24/28
3 x Unidentified
Badly damaged:
1 x Mi-8
Damaged to some extent:
4 x Mi-28 (2 of which are likely NM/UB)
1 x Mi-8
3 x Mi-24
2 x Ka-52
@Rebel44CZ

Video reportedly from Kherson dated 18-Mar shows towing of 2 x Mi-28N (one of which has clearly damaged tail rotor), 1 x Mi-8MTV-5/AMTSh and 1 x Mi-35M

30/Another video dated 18-Mar as well shows Mi-24 (or sub-variant) being towed. Could be the same helicopter from the previous video or another Hind.
That's all, Folks!

31/P.S.
Maybe I'm just trying to convince myself, but the more I look at 42 and 43 the more they resemble the reference Mi-8, independent of the horizontal stabilizers clue of 43.
Or maybe I need to rest 😅

32/P.P.S.
Apparently one of the helicopters damaged during the attacks on the airfield. Pay attention to Mi-28 in the background. Unclear if it was shot while still in Kherson Int AP or elsewhere, after the evacuation. Could anyone attempt to geolocate?

Share this Scrolly Tale with your friends.

A Scrolly Tale is a new way to read Twitter threads with a more visually immersive experience.
Discover more beautiful Scrolly Tales like this.

Keep scrolling