An operation by Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) has hit “more than 40” Russian bombers at air bases “in the rear of the Russian Federation,” a source in the agency told the Kyiv Independent on June 1.
“Enemy strategic bombers are burning en masse in Russia — this is the result of a special operation by the SBU,” the source said.
Video provided by the source shows what appears to be a row of heavy bomber aircraft on fire at an undisclosed location.
I agree about older Soviet engineering, it’s a bit of a result of digital automation being less available due to domestic computer research being shot down politically in favor of copying IBM and DEC, and also having worse abilities at minimization.
Hence Soviet engineering is how you’d approach building a spacefaring civilization with a slide rule as the baseline instrument, and mostly analog components of everything. That does feel cool.
About warheads - there’s an issue of half-life with nuclear warheads, so that they “rot” is not in doubt, the question is how good the maintenance was.
Fissile material (enriched uranium and plutonium) has a long half-life.
AFAIK tritium is the biggest issue, with a half life of 12.3 years. From what I’ve read, nukes have little feeder tubes to replenish that.