Looks like Russia covering up Ukraine shot it down

Must be true, Ukrainians aren't known to lie. Probably crashed just like those 5 IL-76s filled with VDV in the first week of the war.

holy cope

Money means nothing when you have people's families for ransom.

300 million

What.

$300m

Where does that number come from? Even a Tu-160M only costs half that.

that's a very cool plane

The Tu-22M went out of production in 1993, so it's probably not so cheap or easy to obtain spare parts these days.

AI says that's wrong

Russia's defense budget for 2025 is projected at $145 billion. A $300 million expenditure would account for approximately 0.21% of this total budget.