120-529: The Tupolev Tu-160 ( Russian : Туполев Ту-160 «Белый лебедь» , romanized : Bely Lebed , lit. ' White Swan '; NATO reporting name : Blackjack ) is a supersonic , variable-sweep wing nuclear-capable heavy strategic bomber and airborne missile platform designed by the Tupolev Design Bureau in the Soviet Union in the 1970s. The Tu-160 is operated by
240-674: A constitutional referendum on whether to adopt Russian as a second official language. According to the Central Election Commission, 74.8% voted against, 24.9% voted for and the voter turnout was 71.1%. Starting in 2019, instruction in Russian will be gradually discontinued in private colleges and universities in Latvia, and in general instruction in Latvian public high schools. On 29 September 2022, Saeima passed in
360-519: A new education law which requires all schools to teach at least partially in Ukrainian, with provisions while allow indigenous languages and languages of national minorities to be used alongside the national language. The law faced criticism from officials in Russia and Hungary. The 2019 Law of Ukraine "On protecting the functioning of the Ukrainian language as the state language" gives priority to
480-625: A standoff missile platform (strategic missile carrier). The Tu-160 is also larger and faster than the B-1B and has a slightly greater combat range, though the B-1B has a larger combined payload with external payload. Another noticeable difference is that the B-1's colour scheme is usually subdued dark gray to reduce visibility; the Tu-160 is painted with anti-flash white , giving it the nickname among Russian airmen "White Swan". On 16 September 2023, Commander of
600-410: A civilian passenger supersonic transport version of Tu-160. Experts quoted by the news media were skeptical about the commercial and technological feasibility of such a civilian conversion. The Tu-160 is a variable-geometry wing aircraft. The aircraft employs a fly-by-wire control system with a blended wing profile, and full-span slats are used on the leading edges, with double-slotted flaps on
720-534: A complete production facility had been transferred to Shanghai, for the development of a nuclear-armed cruise missile. Originally it was thought that this was based on the 300 km-range Raduga Kh-15 (AS-16 "Kickback"), but it now appears that it was the Kh-55 that was transferred to China. The original Kh-55 was powered by a drop-down, Ukrainian-made 400 kgf Motor Sich JSC R95-300 turbofan engine, with pop-out wings for cruising efficiency. The Kh-65SE version had
840-423: A contract for ten upgraded Tu-160M2s was signed. On 12 January 2022 a new-build Tu-160M had its first low altitude basic test flight. It is planned to deliver two new-build Tu-160M in 2022 with production increasing until all 50 new aircraft on order are delivered. In December 2022, United Aircraft Corporation announced that the second new-build Tu-160M and the fourth modernized Tu-160M were starting flight tests. It
960-699: A deal said to be worth US$ 49.5 million, and an additional six Kh-55s were exported to China. In March 2015, Iran subsequently revealed the existence of the Soumar cruise missile. In the course of the Russian military intervention in the Syrian Civil War on 17 November 2015, Russian Defence Ministry reported that Tupolev Tu-95MS and Tupolev Tu-160 strategic bombers launched a total of 34 air-launched cruise missiles against 14 ISIL targets in Syria. While
1080-651: A first test flight in 1976. The appearance of the US Air Force's AGM-86 ALCM in that year gave further impetus to the programme, with the Soviet Air Force issuing a formal requirement for a new air-launched cruise missile in December 1976. The longer-range Kh-55SM was developed a few years after the original went into service. After the end of the Cold War and anti-proliferation treaties restricting
1200-486: A fixed external turbojet engine, while the Kh-SD had its engine inside the body of the missile. Production versions in 2013 were equipped with the increased-power 450 kgf Russian-made NPO Saturn TRDD-50A engine. The missile can be launched from both high and low altitudes, and flies at subsonic speeds at low levels (under 110 m/300 ft altitude). After launch, the missile's folded wings, tail surfaces and engine deploy. It
1320-475: A formula with V standing for the nucleus (vowel) and C for each consonant, the maximal structure can be described as follows: (C)(C)(C)(C)V(C)(C)(C)(C) Kh-55#Variants The Kh-55 ( Russian : Х -55 , also known as RKV-500 ; NATO reporting name : AS-15 "Kent" ) is a Soviet /Russian subsonic air-launched cruise missile , designed by MKB Raduga in the 1970s. It has a range of up to 2,500 km (1,350 nmi) and can carry nuclear warheads. Kh-55
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#17327805862891440-558: A hard or soft counterpart, and the distinction is a prominent feature of the language, which is usually shown in writing not by a change of the consonant but rather by changing the following vowel. Another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels . Stress , which is often unpredictable, is not normally indicated orthographically , though an optional acute accent may be used to mark stress – such as to distinguish between homographic words (e.g. замо́к [ zamók , 'lock'] and за́мок [ zámok , 'castle']), or to indicate
1560-484: A language that "belongs to the European cultural space". The financing of Russian-language content by the state will cease, which the concept says create a "unified information space". However, one inevitable consequence would be the closure of public media broadcasts in Russian on LTV and Latvian Radio, as well as the closure of LSM's Russian-language service. In Lithuania , Russian has no official or legal status, but
1680-588: A lesser extent the languages to the south and the east: Uralic , Turkic , Persian , Arabic , and Hebrew . According to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California , Russian is classified as a level III language in terms of learning difficulty for native English speakers, requiring approximately 1,100 hours of immersion instruction to achieve intermediate fluency. Feudal divisions and conflicts created obstacles between
1800-622: A minority language under the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities . 30% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 2% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. In Azerbaijan , Russian has no official status, but is a lingua franca of the country. 26% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 5% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. In Georgia , Russian has no official status, but it
1920-526: A qualitatively new entity can be said to emerge—the general language of the working class... capitalism has the tendency of creating the general urban language of a given society. In 2010, there were 259.8 million speakers of Russian in the world: in Russia – 137.5 million, in the CIS and Baltic countries – 93.7 million, in Eastern Europe – 12.9 million, Western Europe – 7.3 million, Asia – 2.7 million, in
2040-526: A series of launches of their cruise missiles. Some bombers launched a full complement of missiles; it was the first time that a Tu-160 had ever fired a full complement of missiles. On 10 June 2010, two Tu-160s carried out a record-breaking 23-hour patrol with a planned flight range of 18,000 km (9,700 nmi), having flown along Russia's borders and over neutral waters in the Arctic and Pacific Oceans. In August 2011, Russian media claimed that only four of
2160-484: A test flight, the first of the resumed serial production, with two planned for delivery in 2022 from 10 on order. The first competition for a supersonic strategic heavy bomber was launched in the Soviet Union in 1967. In 1972, the Soviet Union launched a new multi-mission bomber competition to create a new supersonic, variable-geometry ("swing-wing") heavy bomber with a maximum speed of Mach 2.3, in response to
2280-539: Is Belarusian, among ethnic Belarusians this share is 28.5%; the highest share of those who speak Belarusian at home is among ethnic Poles — 46.0%. In Estonia , Russian is spoken by 29.6% of the population, according to a 2011 estimate from the World Factbook, and is officially considered a foreign language. School education in the Russian language is a very contentious point in Estonian politics, and in 2022,
2400-481: Is a co-official language per article 5 of the Constitution of Kyrgyzstan . The 2009 census states that 482,200 people speak Russian as a native language, or 8.99% of the population. Additionally, 1,854,700 residents of Kyrgyzstan aged 15 and above fluently speak Russian as a second language, or 49.6% of the population in the age group. In Tajikistan , Russian is the language of inter-ethnic communication under
2520-401: Is a high degree of mutual intelligibility between Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian , and a moderate degree of it in all modern Slavic languages, at least at the conversational level. Russian is written using a Cyrillic alphabet. The Russian alphabet consists of 33 letters. The following table gives their forms, along with IPA values for each letter's typical sound: Older letters of
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#17327805862892640-610: Is a post-posed definite article -to , -ta , -te similar to that existing in Bulgarian and Macedonian. In the Southern Russian dialects , instances of unstressed /e/ and /a/ following palatalized consonants and preceding a stressed syllable are not reduced to [ɪ] (as occurs in the Moscow dialect), being instead pronounced [a] in such positions (e.g. несл и is pronounced [nʲaˈslʲi] , not [nʲɪsˈlʲi] ) – this
2760-673: Is an East Slavic language belonging to the Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family . It is one of the four extant East Slavic languages, and is the native language of the Russians . It was the de facto and de jure official language of the former Soviet Union . Russian has remained an official language of the Russian Federation , Belarus , Kazakhstan , Kyrgyzstan , and Tajikistan , and
2880-488: Is being used less frequently by Russian-speaking typists in favor of the extension of Unicode character encoding , which fully incorporates the Russian alphabet. Free programs are available offering this Unicode extension, which allow users to type Russian characters, even on Western 'QWERTY' keyboards. The Russian language was first introduced to computing after the M-1 , and MESM models were produced in 1951. According to
3000-624: Is called yakanye ( яканье ). Consonants include a fricative /ɣ/ , a semivowel /w⁓u̯/ and /x⁓xv⁓xw/ , whereas the Standard and Northern dialects have the consonants /ɡ/ , /v/ , and final /l/ and /f/ , respectively. The morphology features a palatalized final /tʲ/ in 3rd person forms of verbs (this is unpalatalized in the Standard and Northern dialects). During the Proto-Slavic (Common Slavic) times all Slavs spoke one mutually intelligible language or group of dialects. There
3120-576: Is estimated to cost RUR3.4 billion (US$ 103 million). The modernization appeared to be split into two phases, first concentrating on life extension with some initial communication–navigation updates, followed by engine upgrades after 2016. In November 2014, a Tu-160 upgraded with new radar and avionics performed its first flight. The aircraft was delivered to the Russian Air Force as the Tu-160M model in December 2014. The phase I update
3240-474: Is guided through a combination of an inertial guidance system plus a terrain contour-matching guidance system which uses radar and images stored in the memory of an onboard computer to find its target. This allows the missile to guide itself to the target with a high degree of accuracy. In the nuclear role, Kh-55 carries a 200 kilotonnes of TNT (840 TJ) warhead designated TK66, with a warhead weight of 130 kilograms (290 lb). The mass-size simulator for
3360-521: Is launched exclusively from bomber aircraft and has spawned a number of conventionally armed variants mainly for tactical use, such as the Kh-65SE and Kh-SD , but only the Kh-555 appears to have been put into service. The Kh-55 was not the basis of the submarine and ground-launched S-10 Granat or RK-55 Relief (SS-N-21 "Sampson" and SSC-X-4 "Slingshot") designed by NPO Novator . The RK-55
3480-573: Is more spoken than English. Sizable Russian-speaking communities also exist in North America, especially in large urban centers of the US and Canada, such as New York City , Philadelphia , Boston , Los Angeles , Nashville , San Francisco , Seattle , Spokane , Toronto , Calgary , Baltimore , Miami , Portland , Chicago , Denver , and Cleveland . In a number of locations they issue their own newspapers, and live in ethnic enclaves (especially
3600-564: Is odd") – чу́дно ( chúdno – "this is marvellous"), молоде́ц ( molodéts – "well done!") – мо́лодец ( mólodets – "fine young man"), узна́ю ( uznáyu – "I shall learn it") – узнаю́ ( uznayú – "I recognize it"), отреза́ть ( otrezát – "to be cutting") – отре́зать ( otrézat – "to have cut"); to indicate the proper pronunciation of uncommon words, especially personal and family names, like афе́ра ( aféra , "scandal, affair"), гу́ру ( gúru , "guru"), Гарси́я ( García ), Оле́ша ( Olésha ), Фе́рми ( Fermi ), and to show which
3720-447: Is rarely used. The Tu-160 has an internal fuel capacity of 130 tonnes (286,600 lb). In February 2008, Tu-160 bombers and Il-78 refueling tankers practiced air refueling during air combat exercise, as well as MiG-31 , A-50 and other Russian combat aircraft. The aircraft carries a TsNPO Leninets Obzor-K (Survey, NATO: Clam Pipe) radar for tracking ground and air targets, and a separate Sopka Terrain-following radar . Although
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3840-402: Is recognized as a minority language under the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities . Russian is the language of 9% of the population according to the World Factbook. Ethnologue cites Russian as the country's de facto working language. In China , Russian has no official status, but it is spoken by the small Russian communities in the northeastern Heilongjiang and
3960-569: Is sometimes considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. Also, Russian has notable lexical similarities with Bulgarian due to a common Church Slavonic influence on both languages, but because of later interaction in the 19th and 20th centuries, Bulgarian grammar differs markedly from Russian. Over the course of centuries, the vocabulary and literary style of Russian have also been influenced by Western and Central European languages such as Greek, Latin , Polish , Dutch , German, French, Italian, and English, and to
4080-585: Is spoken by 14.2% of the population according to an undated estimate from the World Factbook. In 2005, Russian was the most widely taught foreign language in Mongolia, and was compulsory in Year 7 onward as a second foreign language in 2006. Around 1.5 million Israelis spoke Russian as of 2017. The Israeli press and websites regularly publish material in Russian and there are Russian newspapers, television stations, schools, and social media outlets based in
4200-677: Is still commonly used as a lingua franca in Ukraine , Moldova , the Caucasus , Central Asia , and to a lesser extent in the Baltic states and Israel . Russian has over 258 million total speakers worldwide. It is the most spoken native language in Europe , the most spoken Slavic language , as well as the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia . It is the world's seventh-most spoken language by number of native speakers , and
4320-518: Is the stressed word in a sentence, for example Ты́ съел печенье? ( Tý syel pechenye? – "Was it you who ate the cookie?") – Ты съе́л печенье? ( Ty syél pechenye? – "Did you eat the cookie?) – Ты съел пече́нье? ( Ty syel pechénye? "Was it the cookie you ate?"). Stress marks are mandatory in lexical dictionaries and books for children or Russian learners. The Russian syllable structure can be quite complex, with both initial and final consonant clusters of up to four consecutive sounds. Using
4440-555: Is very similar to the air-launched Kh-55 (AS-15 "Kent") but the Kh-55 has a drop-down turbofan engine and was designed by MKB Raduga. In the late 1960s, the "Ekho" study conducted by the GosNIIAS institute concluded that it would be more effective to deploy many small, subsonic cruise missiles than the much more expensive supersonic missiles then in favour. Work started at the Raduga bureau on an air-launched cruise missile in 1971, with
4560-470: The 2011 Lithuanian census , Russian was the native language for 7.2% of the population. In Moldova , Russian was considered to be the language of interethnic communication under a Soviet-era law. On 21 January 2021, the Constitutional Court of Moldova declared the law unconstitutional and deprived Russian of the status of the language of interethnic communication. 50% of the population
4680-1000: The Apollo–Soyuz mission, which first flew in 1975. In March 2013, Russian was found to be the second-most used language on websites after English. Russian was the language of 5.9% of all websites, slightly ahead of German and far behind English (54.7%). Russian was used not only on 89.8% of .ru sites, but also on 88.7% of sites with the former Soviet Union domain .su . Websites in former Soviet Union member states also used high levels of Russian: 79.0% in Ukraine, 86.9% in Belarus, 84.0% in Kazakhstan, 79.6% in Uzbekistan, 75.9% in Kyrgyzstan and 81.8% in Tajikistan. However, Russian
4800-660: The Caspian Sea area. In 2022, retired Air Chief Marshal Anoop Raha said India was interested in purchasing Tu-160s. Reports have emerged that India is in talks with Russia to acquire six Tu-160s that will make India the only country other than US, Russia and China to have operational strategic bombers. Data from Jane's All the World's Aircraft 2003–2004 General characteristics Performance Armament Aircraft of comparable role, configuration, and era Related lists Russian language Russian
4920-620: The Caspian Sea , Arabian Sea , and Indian Ocean, covering 11,000 km (6,800 mi) with mid-air refueling and landed at Waterkloof Air Force Base in South Africa. It was the Tu-160's first visit to the African continent. On 11 November 2021, the Belarusian Defense Ministry announced that two Russian Tu-160s flew on a training mission over Belarus alongside Belarusian Air Force Sukhoi Su-30s . The type
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5040-413: The Constitution of Tajikistan and is permitted in official documentation. 28% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 7% used it as the main language with family, friends or at work. The World Factbook notes that Russian is widely used in government and business. In Turkmenistan , Russian lost its status as the official lingua franca in 1996. Among 12% of the population who grew up in
5160-727: The Long Range Aviation of the Russian Aerospace Forces . Entering service in 1987, the Tu-160 was the last strategic bomber designed for the Soviet Air Forces and was built to serve as a conventional and nuclear-capable strike aircraft. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the newly independent Ukraine inherited a fleet of 19 Tu-160s, over half of all the Tu-160s in existence at that time. They had been deployed there since
5280-479: The Russian Aerospace Forces ' Long Range Aviation branch, which has 16 Tu-160s in service as of 2016. The type had its combat debut in November 2015 during the Russian military intervention in the Syrian Civil War , conducting numerous airstrikes using Kh-101 air-launched cruise missiles. Various overseas deployments have been conducted, including to distant nations such as Venezuela and South Africa . Since
5400-516: The Russian Defence Ministry and KAPO signed a contract for a delivery of a single near-complete bomber. Named Aleksandr Molodchiy , it was the second aircraft in the eighth production batch. It arrived at Engels-2 on 10 September and was commissioned into service on 5 May 2000. The unit operating the fleet from Engels-2 was the 121st Guards Heavy Bomber Regiment which was formed up in early 1992 and received six aircraft by 1994. By
5520-692: The US Air Force B-1 bomber project. The Tupolev design, named Aircraft 160M , with a lengthened blended wing layout and incorporating some elements of the Tu-144 , competed against the Myasishchev M-18 and the Sukhoi T-4 designs. Work on the new Soviet bomber continued despite an end to the B-1A and, in the same year, the design was accepted by the government committee. The prototype
5640-584: The Ukrainian language in more than 30 spheres of public life: in particular in public administration , media, education, science, culture, advertising, services . The law does not regulate private communication. A poll conducted in March 2022 by RATING in the territory controlled by Ukraine found that 83% of the respondents believe that Ukrainian should be the only state language of Ukraine. This opinion dominates in all macro-regions, age and language groups. On
5760-721: The United States Census , in 2007 Russian was the primary language spoken in the homes of over 850,000 individuals living in the United States. Russian is one of the official languages (or has similar status and interpretation must be provided into Russian) of the following: The Russian language is also one of two official languages aboard the International Space Station – NASA astronauts who serve alongside Russian cosmonauts usually take Russian language courses. This practice goes back to
5880-519: The 20th century, Russian was a mandatory language taught in the schools of the members of the old Warsaw Pact and in other countries that used to be satellites of the USSR. According to the Eurobarometer 2005 survey, fluency in Russian remains fairly high (20–40%) in some countries, in particular former Warsaw Pact countries. In Armenia , Russian has no official status, but it is recognized as
6000-583: The 25 Tu-95MSs of the 182nd Heavy Bomber Regiment at Uzin-Shepelovka . It was reported that Ukraine demanded US$ 3 billion for the return of the planes and their missiles to Russia. In October 1999, a compromise was reached that saw Russia pay US$ 285 million for eight Tu-160 and three Tu-95MS bombers and 575 Kh-55 cruise missiles, while the rest were meant to be destroyed under U.S.-led Nunn–Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction programme. However, in March 2005 Ukraine's prosecutor-general Sviatoslav Piskun said that in 2001, twelve Kh-55s had been exported to Iran in
6120-471: The Belarusian society the Russian language prevails, so according to the 2019 census 6,718,557 people (71.4% of the total population) stated that they speak Russian at home, for ethnic Belarusians this share is 61.4%, for Russians — 97.2%, for Ukrainians — 89.0%, for Poles — 52.4%, and for Jews — 96.6%; 2,447,764 people (26.0% of the total population) stated that the language they usually speak at home
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#17327805862896240-532: The Great and developed from the Moscow ( Middle or Central Russian ) dialect substratum under the influence of some of the previous century's Russian chancery language. Prior to the Bolshevik Revolution , the spoken form of the Russian language was that of the nobility and the urban bourgeoisie. Russian peasants, the great majority of the population, continued to speak in their own dialects. However,
6360-590: The Institute of Russian Language of the Russian Academy of Sciences, an optional acute accent ( знак ударения ) may, and sometimes should, be used to mark stress . For example, it is used to distinguish between otherwise identical words, especially when context does not make it obvious: замо́к ( zamók – "lock") – за́мок ( zámok – "castle"), сто́ящий ( stóyashchy – "worthwhile") – стоя́щий ( stoyáshchy – "standing"), чудно́ ( chudnó – "this
6480-711: The Kh-55SM is carried by the Tupolev Tu-160 "White Swan" (NATO "Blackjack"). Sixteen Kh-55s can be carried by the Tu-95MS16 variant, ten on underwing hardpoints and six on an MKU-5-6 rotary launcher. The missile was also tested on the Tu-22M (NATO "Backfire") bombers. The end of the Cold War left Ukraine with 1,612 Kh-55s, part of the armament of the 19 Tu-160s of the 184th Heavy Bomber Regiment at Pryluky and
6600-602: The Mediterranean Sea, striking targets in Idlib and Aleppo provinces. In total, between 34 and 83 cruise missiles were fired, destroying 14 targets. In addition, Tu-22M3 strategic bombers hit numerous claimed Islamic State targets with unguided munitions. This operation also marked the combat debut for the Tu-160 and Tu-95MS. In August 2018, a number of Russian military aircraft including two Tu-160, Tu-95MS strategic bombers and Il-78 aerial tankers were deployed for
6720-411: The Middle East and North Africa – 1.3 million, Sub-Saharan Africa – 0.1 million, Latin America – 0.2 million, U.S., Canada , Australia, and New Zealand – 4.1 million speakers. Therefore, the Russian language is the seventh-largest in the world by the number of speakers , after English, Mandarin, Hindi -Urdu, Spanish, French, Arabic, and Portuguese. Russian is one of the six official languages of
6840-423: The Pemboi Test Range in the northeastern region of Komi Republic . On 10 December 2018, two Tu-160s accompanied by an An-124 cargo plane and an Il-62 passenger plane, landed at the Maiquetía airport in Venezuela. On 23 October 2019, two Tu-160s accompanied by an An-124 and an Il-62 visited South Africa as part of strengthening ties between the two nations; the aircraft performed a 13 hours non-stop flight over
6960-438: The Russian Air Force would purchase at least 50 KAPO-built Tu-160s. General Viktor Bondarev stated that development of the PAK DA will proceed alongside Tu-160 production. On 16 November 2017, a newly assembled Tu-160, built from an unfinished airframe, was unveiled during a roll-out ceremony at KAPO, signifying a restoration of certain production techniques such as electron-beam welding or titanium work reportedly lost after
7080-807: The Russian alphabet include ⟨ ѣ ⟩ , which merged to ⟨ е ⟩ ( /je/ or /ʲe/ ); ⟨ і ⟩ and ⟨ ѵ ⟩ , which both merged to ⟨ и ⟩ ( /i/ ); ⟨ ѳ ⟩ , which merged to ⟨ ф ⟩ ( /f/ ); ⟨ ѫ ⟩ , which merged to ⟨ у ⟩ ( /u/ ); ⟨ ѭ ⟩ , which merged to ⟨ ю ⟩ ( /ju/ or /ʲu/ ); and ⟨ ѧ ⟩ and ⟨ ѩ ⟩ , which later were graphically reshaped into ⟨ я ⟩ and merged phonetically to /ja/ or /ʲa/ . While these older letters have been abandoned at one time or another, they may be used in this and related articles. The yers ⟨ ъ ⟩ and ⟨ ь ⟩ originally indicated
7200-435: The Russian government after the first violation. In the second violation, two Colombian Air Force IAI Kfirs stationed at Barranquilla intercepted and escorted the two Tu-160s out of Colombian airspace. On 17 November 2015, as part of the Russian military intervention in the Syrian Civil War , several Tu-160 and Tu-95MS strategic bombers of the Russian Aerospace Forces fired Kh-101 air-launched cruise missiles from above
7320-458: The Russian principalities before and especially during Mongol rule. This strengthened dialectal differences, and for a while, prevented the emergence of a standardized national language. The formation of the unified and centralized Russian state in the 15th and 16th centuries, and the gradual re-emergence of a common political, economic, and cultural space created the need for a common standard language. The initial impulse for standardization came from
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#17327805862897440-405: The Soviet era can speak Russian, other generations of citizens that do not have any knowledge of Russian. Primary and secondary education by Russian is almost non-existent. In Uzbekistan , Russian is the language of inter-ethnic communication. It has some official roles, being permitted in official documentation and is the lingua franca of the country and the language of the elite. Russian
7560-428: The Tu-160 is the first post- World War II Soviet bomber to lack such defenses. In 2020, officials stated that the Russian Aerospace Forces is planning to arm the Tu-160 with new hypersonic missiles, in particular the nuclear-capable Kh-47M2 Kinzhal hypersonic air-launched ballistic missile. While similar in appearance to the American B-1 Lancer, the Tu-160 is a different class of combat aircraft; its primary role being
7680-438: The Tu-160 was designed for reduced detectability to both radar and infrared signature , it is not a stealth aircraft . Weapons are carried in two internal bays, each capable of holding 22,500 kg (49,600 lb) of free-fall weapons or a rotary launcher for missiles capable of carrying conventional or nuclear-warheads. The aircraft's total weapons load capacity is 45,000 kg (99,208 lb). No defensive weapons are provided;
7800-411: The Tu-160s to be a bargaining chip in economic negotiations with Russia and of limited military value. While Russian experts, who examined the aircraft at the Pryluky Air Base in 1993 and 1996, assessed their technical condition as good, the US$ 3 billion price proposed by Ukraine was considered by Russia to be unacceptable. In April 1998, amid stalled negotiations, Ukraine decided to commence scrapping
7920-529: The Tu-95MS used the Kh-55 cruise missiles, the Tu-160 were equipped with the stealthy Kh-101 variant in their first combat use. Russian news agency TASS reported on 17 November 2016 that modernized Tu-95MS armed with Kh-555 and Kh-101 air-launched cruise missiles had launched airstrikes against targets described as terrorist in Syria. The UK Ministry of Defence said in November 2022 that it appeared that Russian forces, due to very much depleted weapons stores, were firing old AS-15 Kent cruise missiles with
8040-417: The United Kingdom and Finland, as they were patrolling the North Atlantic. On 25 December 2007, two Danish Air Force F-16s were scrambled to intercept two Tu-160s near Danish airspace. On 11 September 2007, according to Russian government sources, a Tu-160 deployed a massive fuel-air explosive device, called Father of All Bombs , for its first field test . Some US military analysts expressed skepticism that
8160-403: The United Nations. Education in Russian is still a popular choice for both Russian as a second language (RSL) and native speakers in Russia, and in many former Soviet republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the former Soviet republics. In Belarus , Russian is a second state language alongside Belarusian per the Constitution of Belarus . 77% of
8280-417: The United States. The Russian Defence Ministry said Vasily Senko and Aleksandr Molodchiy would conduct training flights over neutral waters before returning to Russia. They were escorted by NATO fighters as they crossed the Atlantic Ocean. On 12 October 2008, Tu-160s were involved in the largest Russian strategic bomber exercise since 1984. A total of 12 bombers including Tu-160 and Tu-95 aircraft conducted
8400-403: The broader sense of expanding the use of Russian alongside or in favour of other languages. The current standard form of Russian is generally regarded as the modern Russian literary language ( современный русский литературный язык – "sovremenny russky literaturny yazyk"). It arose at the beginning of the 18th century with the modernization reforms of the Russian state under the rule of Peter
8520-460: The country. There is an Israeli TV channel mainly broadcasting in Russian with Israel Plus . See also Russian language in Israel . Russian is also spoken as a second language by a small number of people in Afghanistan . In Vietnam , Russian has been added in the elementary curriculum along with Chinese and Japanese and were named as "first foreign languages" for Vietnamese students to learn, on equal footing with English. The Russian language
8640-683: The deployment of long-range nuclear missiles, the Russians made efforts to develop tactical versions of the Kh-55 with conventional warheads. First came the 600 km-range Kh-65SE (derived from the Kh-55) announced in 1992, then the 300 km-range Kh-SD tactical version of the Kh-101 for export, and finally the Kh-555. In 2001 the Russian Air Force are believed to have selected the Kh-101 and Kh-555 for development. A 1995 Russian document suggested that
8760-411: The early 2000s, the active fleet has been subject to several upgrades, largely focusing on various electronics systems. The Tu-160M modernization program of existing models began with the first updated aircraft delivered in December 2014. Plans announced in 2015 called for the delivery of 50 new-build Tu-160Ms as well as the upgrading of 16 existing aircraft. In January 2022, a newly-built Tu-160M performed
8880-600: The end of February 2001, the fleet stood at 15 with the addition of the eight Ukrainian Tu-160s and the new-build. The fleet was reduced to 14 due to the crash of the Mikhail Gromov during flight trials of a replacement engine on 18 September 2003. On 5 July 2006, a Tu-160 named Valentin Bliznyuk , named after the Tu-160's chief designer , entered service with the Russian Air Force after completing its overhaul, bringing
9000-413: The factory and the industrial plant their local peasant dialects with their phonetics, grammar, and vocabulary, and the very process of recruiting workers from peasants and the mobility of the worker population generate another process: the liquidation of peasant inheritance by way of leveling the particulars of local dialects. On the ruins of peasant multilingual, in the context of developing heavy industry,
9120-456: The final reading amendments that state that all schools and kindergartens in the country are to transition to education in Latvian . From 2025, all children will be taught in Latvian only. On 28 September 2023, Latvian deputies approved The National Security Concept, according to which from 1 January 2026, all content created by Latvian public media (including LSM ) should be only in Latvian or
9240-609: The first time to the Russian Far East as part of a long-range tactical flight exercise, flying 7,000 km non-stop flight from their home base in Saratov Oblast to Chukotka . During the exercise, the crews practised the combat use of cruise missiles at the Komi Test Range and performed aerial refueling. In November 2018, a modernized Tu-160M test-fired a full complement of 12 Kh-101 cruise missiles at
9360-492: The fleet under the Nunn–Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction agreement. In November, the first Tu-160 was deconstructed at Pryluky. In April 1999, Russia resumed talks with Ukraine, proposing to purchase eight Tu-160 and three Tu-95MS bombers manufactured in 1991 (those in the best technical condition), as well as 575 Kh-55SM cruise missiles. An agreement was reached and a US$ 285 million contract
9480-631: The generation of immigrants who started arriving in the early 1960s). Only about 25% of them are ethnic Russians, however. Before the dissolution of the Soviet Union , the overwhelming majority of Russophones in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn in New York City were Russian-speaking Jews. Afterward, the influx from the countries of the former Soviet Union changed the statistics somewhat, with ethnic Russians and Ukrainians immigrating along with some more Russian Jews and Central Asians. According to
9600-480: The government bureaucracy for the lack of a reliable tool of communication in administrative, legal, and judicial affairs became an obvious practical problem. The earliest attempts at standardizing Russian were made based on the so-called Moscow official or chancery language, during the 15th to 17th centuries. Since then, the trend of language policy in Russia has been standardization in both the restricted sense of reducing dialectical barriers between ethnic Russians, and
9720-399: The late 1980s with local Soviet Air Force units and were soon afterwards handed over to the newly formed Ukrainian Air Force. Following protracted negotiations, 11 Ukrainian Tu-160s were purchased by the Russian Federation while the remainder were scrapped in the late 1990s under the Nunn–Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction agreement. Following these actions, the sole operator of the type is
9840-451: The long-range aviation Lieutenant General Sergei Kobylash announced that Russian Tu-160s were outfitted with the newest Kh-BD cruise missile with range of 6,500 km. Each bomber can carry 12 missiles separated on two rotary launchers. In April 1987, the Tu-160 entered operational service with the 184th Guards Heavy Bomber Regiment located at Pryluky , Ukrainian SSR . The regiment, previously operating Tu-16 and Tu-22M3 strategic bombers,
9960-481: The most powerful ever fitted to a combat aircraft. Unlike the American B-1B Lancer , which reduced the original Mach 2+ requirement for the B-1A to achieve a smaller radar cross-section , the Tu-160 retains variable intake ramps , and is capable of reaching Mach 2.05 speed at altitude. The Tu-160 is equipped with a probe-and-drogue in-flight refueling system for extended-range missions, although it
10080-442: The new engines by August 2022. According to Vladimir Putin , 4 Tu-160M were delivered in 2023. In 2008, Russia revealed plans for one new Tu-160 to be delivered every one to two years with the aim of increasing the active inventory to 30 or more aircraft by 2025–2030. On 29 April 2015, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu , on order of President Putin, announced that Tu-160 production would resume. In May 2015, TASS reported that
10200-493: The newly independent Ukraine during the dissolution of the Soviet Union . On 25 August 1991, the Ukrainian parliament decreed that the new nation would take control of all military units on its territory; a Defence Ministry was created that same day. By the mid-1990s, the Pryluky regiment had lost its value as a combat unit; 19 Tu-160s were effectively grounded due to a lack of technical support and spare parts. Ukraine considered
10320-524: The northwestern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region . Russian was also the main foreign language taught in school in China between 1949 and 1964. In Kazakhstan , Russian is not a state language, but according to article 7 of the Constitution of Kazakhstan its usage enjoys equal status to that of the Kazakh language in state and local administration. The 2009 census reported that 10,309,500 people, or 84.8% of
10440-587: The nuclear warheads apparently replaced by inert ballast, hoping merely to distract Ukrainian air defenses. However the missiles can still pose a serious risk due to their kinetic energy and any unspent fuel left in the missile that might explode. Ukrainian Kh-55 nuclear missiles that had been transferred to Russia as part of a weapons-for-gas trade in 1999 were found to have been fired at Ukraine after Russian forces replaced their warheads with ballast, as dummy missiles used to overwhelm Ukrainian air defences. At least several civilians are known to have suffered as
10560-515: The other hand, before the war, almost a quarter of Ukrainians were in favour of granting Russian the status of the state language, while after the beginning of Russia's invasion the support for the idea dropped to just 7%. In peacetime, the idea of raising the status of Russian was traditionally supported by residents of the south and east . But even in these regions, only a third of the respondents were in favour, and after Russia's full-scale invasion , their number dropped by almost half. According to
10680-461: The other three languages in the East Slavic branch. In many places in eastern and southern Ukraine and throughout Belarus, these languages are spoken interchangeably, and in certain areas traditional bilingualism resulted in language mixtures such as Surzhyk in eastern Ukraine and Trasianka in Belarus. An East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect , although it vanished during the 15th or 16th century,
10800-446: The parliament approved a bill to close up all Russian language schools and kindergartens by the school year. The transition to only Estonian language schools and kindergartens will start in the 2024-2025 school year. In Latvia , Russian is officially considered a foreign language. 55% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 26% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. On 18 February 2012, Latvia held
10920-453: The peasants' speech was never systematically studied, as it was generally regarded by philologists as simply a source of folklore and an object of curiosity. This was acknowledged by the noted Russian dialectologist Nikolai Karinsky , who toward the end of his life wrote: "Scholars of Russian dialects mostly studied phonetics and morphology. Some scholars and collectors compiled local dictionaries. We have almost no studies of lexical material or
11040-459: The population aged 15 and above, could read and write well in Russian, and understand the spoken language. In October 2023, Kazakhstan drafted a media law aimed at increasing the use of the Kazakh language over Russian, the law stipulates that the share of the state language on television and radio should increase from 50% to 70%, at a rate of 5% per year, starting in 2025. In Kyrgyzstan , Russian
11160-418: The population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 67% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. According to the 2019 Belarusian census , out of 9,413,446 inhabitants of the country, 5,094,928 (54.1% of the total population) named Belarusian as their native language, with 61.2% of ethnic Belarusians and 54.5% of ethnic Poles declaring Belarusian as their native language. In everyday life in
11280-479: The pronunciation of ultra-short or reduced /ŭ/ , /ĭ/ . Because of many technical restrictions in computing and also because of the unavailability of Cyrillic keyboards abroad, Russian is often transliterated using the Latin alphabet. For example, мороз ('frost') is transliterated moroz , and мышь ('mouse'), mysh or myš' . Once commonly used by the majority of those living outside Russia, transliteration
11400-472: The proper pronunciation of uncommon words or names. Russian is an East Slavic language of the wider Indo-European family . It is a descendant of Old East Slavic , a language used in Kievan Rus' , which was a loose conglomerate of East Slavic tribes from the late 9th to the mid-13th centuries. From the point of view of spoken language , its closest relatives are Ukrainian , Belarusian , and Rusyn ,
11520-575: The prospects of a new production line; the firm insists it needs a minimum of 20 engines ordered per year but the government is only prepared to pay for 4–6 engines per year. A further improved engine was bench tested in 2012 and projected to potentially enter production as early as 2016. On 2 February 2020, the modernized Tu-160M performed its first test flight at the airfield of the Kazan Aviation Plant named for I. Gorbunov. Deliveries started later that year, five aircraft were equipped with
11640-491: The respondents), while according to the 2002 census – 142.6 million people (99.2% of the respondents). In Ukraine , Russian is a significant minority language. According to estimates from Demoskop Weekly, in 2004 there were 14,400,000 native speakers of Russian in the country, and 29 million active speakers. 65% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 38% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. On 5 September 2017, Ukraine's Parliament passed
11760-572: The result of such attacks. One Kh-55 hit an apartment building in the capital of Ukraine at the end of 2022, killing a woman. Another hit a house in Kyiv Oblast, injuring a child. A Kh-55 missile with a ballast warhead, launched over Belarus on 16 December 2022, diverted course and fell in Poland, in a forest 15 km west of Bydgoszcz after having crossed around 500 km of Polish territory. According to Polish PM Mateusz Morawiecki , it
11880-467: The sixteen Tu-160s were flight worthy. Flight International reported eleven were combat-ready by mid-2012; between 2011 and 2013, eleven were observed in flight. On 1 November 2013, Aleksandr Golovanov and Aleksandr Novikov entered Colombian airspace on two separate occasions while flying from Venezuela to Nicaragua. Noting a lack of clearance, the Colombian government issued a letter of protest to
12000-679: The survey carried out by RATING in August 2023 in the territory controlled by Ukraine and among the refugees, almost 60% of the polled usually speak Ukrainian at home, about 30% – Ukrainian and Russian, only 9% – Russian. Since March 2022, the use of Russian in everyday life has been noticeably decreasing. For 82% of respondents, Ukrainian is their mother tongue, and for 16%, Russian is their mother tongue. IDPs and refugees living abroad are more likely to use both languages for communication or speak Russian. Nevertheless, more than 70% of IDPs and refugees consider Ukrainian to be their native language. In
12120-512: The syntax of Russian dialects." After 1917, Marxist linguists had no interest in the multiplicity of peasant dialects and regarded their language as a relic of the rapidly disappearing past that was not worthy of scholarly attention. Nakhimovsky quotes the Soviet academicians A.M Ivanov and L.P Yakubinsky, writing in 1930: The language of peasants has a motley diversity inherited from feudalism. On its way to becoming proletariat peasantry brings to
12240-555: The termination of serial production in 1992. According to Dmitri Rogozin , the serial production of wholly new airframes for the modernized Tu-160M2 should begin in 2019 with deliveries to the Russian Aerospace Forces in 2023. The aircraft, named Petr Deinekin , after the first commanding officer of the Russian Air Force . Tu-160 Petr Deinekin performed its first public flight on 25 January 2018, during President Vladimir Putin 's visit to KAPO plant. The same day,
12360-651: The total number back to 15. Built in 1986, it was formerly used as a test aircraft by Tupolev. On 22 April 2006, the commander of the Long-Range Aviation Lieutenant General Igor Khvorov reported a pair of Tu-160s flew undetected through a US-controlled sector during a military exercise in the Arctic. On 17 August 2007, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the resumption of strategic aviation flights stopped in 1991. On 14 September 2007, British and Norwegian fighters intercepted two Tu-160s in international airspace near
12480-479: The trailing edges and cruciform tail . Titanium constitutes around 30% of the aircraft's 110 t (242,508 lb) empty weight, and the largest component (the swing wing hinge) weighs six tonnes (13,230 lb). The Tu-160 has a crew of four (pilot, co-pilot, bombardier , and defensive systems operator) in K-36LM ejection seats . The Tu-160 is powered by four Kuznetsov NK-32 afterburning turbofan engines,
12600-786: The two. Others divide the language into three groupings, Northern , Central (or Middle), and Southern , with Moscow lying in the Central region. The Northern Russian dialects and those spoken along the Volga River typically pronounce unstressed /o/ clearly, a phenomenon called okanye ( оканье ). Besides the absence of vowel reduction, some dialects have high or diphthongal /e⁓i̯ɛ/ in place of Proto-Slavic * ě and /o⁓u̯ɔ/ in stressed closed syllables (as in Ukrainian) instead of Standard Russian /e/ and /o/ , respectively. Another Northern dialectal morphological feature
12720-511: The use of the language has some presence in certain areas. A large part of the population, especially the older generations, can speak Russian as a foreign language. However, English has replaced Russian as lingua franca in Lithuania and around 80% of young people speak English as their first foreign language. In contrast to the other two Baltic states, Lithuania has a relatively small Russian-speaking minority (5.0% as of 2008). According to
12840-530: The warhead is designated KTS-120-12. The original Kh-55 entered service on 31 December 1983. The Kh-55SM followed in 1987. The conventionally armed Kh-55SE was flight tested on 13 January 2000, and first used in exercises over the Black Sea 17–22 April 2000. The Kh-555 is thought to have entered service in 2004. The Kh-55 can be carried by the Tu-95MS (NATO "Bear-H") and Tu-142M (NATO "Bear-F"), and
12960-591: The weapon was actually delivered by a Tu-160. On 29 April 2008, a new Tu-160 named Vitaly Kopylov joined the Russian Air Force, increasing the total number of aircraft in service to 16. In early 2008, Tu-160s took part in an exercise with the Russian Navy in the Atlantic Ocean. On 10 September 2008, two Tu-160s made an unprecedented deployment to Russia's ally Venezuela as part of military manoeuvres amid increasingly tense relations between Russia and
13080-707: The world's ninth-most spoken language by total number of speakers . Russian is one of two official languages aboard the International Space Station , one of the six official languages of the United Nations , as well as the fourth most widely used language on the Internet . Russian is written using the Russian alphabet of the Cyrillic script ; it distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without—the so-called "soft" and "hard" sounds. Almost every consonant has
13200-523: Was accepted into Russian service after testing; it reportedly received the capability to use conventional weapons but was not upgraded with new avionics as previously planned. The first modernized aircraft capable of carrying the new long-range Kh-555 conventional cruise missile was delivered to the Russian Air Force in April 2008; a follow-up contract for the modernization of three more aircraft
13320-535: Was also reported that the first new Tu-160 had completed factory testing. 4 aircraft were delivered on 21 February 2024. A demilitarized, commercial version of the Tu-160, named Tu-160SK , was displayed at Asian Aerospace in Singapore in 1994 with a model of a small space vehicle named Burlak attached underneath the fuselage. In January 2018, Vladimir Putin, while visiting the KAPO plant, floated an idea of creating
13440-602: Was detected by Polish and allied radars, however the missile was accidentally found only on 22 April 2023 and the incident was revealed a couple of days later. It is not clear, if its fall in Poland, near aviation repair works in Bydgoszcz, engaged in military aid for Ukraine, was caused by a technical failure of an old missile, or was a provocation. It was believed originally that the RK-55 (SSC-X-4 "Slingshot" and SS-N-21 "Sampson") were land- and submarine-launched derivatives of
13560-528: Was due to be completed by 2016, but industrial limitations may delay it to 2019 or beyond. Although Kuznetsov designed an NK-32M engine with improved reliability over the NK-32 engines, its successor company has struggled to deliver working units. Metallist-Samara JSC had not produced new engines for a decade when it was given a contract in 2011 to overhaul 26 of the existing engines; two years later, only four had been finished. Ownership and financial concerns hinder
13680-405: Was first introduced in North America when Russian explorers voyaged into Alaska and claimed it for Russia during the 18th century. Although most Russian colonists left after the United States bought the land in 1867, a handful stayed and preserved the Russian language in this region to this day, although only a few elderly speakers of this unique dialect are left. In Nikolaevsk, Alaska , Russian
13800-421: Was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 19% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. According to the 2014 Moldovan census , Russians accounted for 4.1% of Moldova's population, 9.4% of the population declared Russian as their native language, and 14.5% said they usually spoke Russian. According to the 2010 census in Russia , Russian language skills were indicated by 138 million people (99.4% of
13920-608: Was involved in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine . According to Ukrainian sources, on 6 March 2022, a Tu-160 along with a Tu-95MS strategic bomber launched eight cruise missiles, presumably the Kh-101, at the Havryshivka Vinnytsia International Airport from the Black Sea area. On 26 June 2022, Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yurii Ihnat reported four to six Kh-101 cruise missiles were launched by Tu-160 and Tu-95MS bombers at Kyiv from
14040-575: Was photographed by an airline passenger at a Zhukovsky Airfield in November 1981, about a month before the aircraft's first flight on 18 December 1981. Production was authorized in 1984, beginning at the Kazan Aircraft Production Association (KAPO). In 2002, the Russian Defence Ministry and KAPO agreed to modernise 15 Tu-160s. In July 2006, the first overhauled and partially modernized aircraft
14160-466: Was signed, the value of which was deducted from Ukraine's debt for natural gas . On 20 October 1999, a group of Russian military experts went to Ukraine to prepare the aircraft for the flight to Engels-2 air base. On 5 November, the first two aircraft, a Tu-160 and a Tu-95MS, departed Pryluky. During the following months, the balance were flown to Engels-2. Alongside buying Ukrainian Tu-160s, Russia pursued other means to expanding its fleet. In June 1999,
14280-516: Was the first unit to receive the Tu-160. Squadron deployments to Long Range Aviation began that same month. The Tu-160's first public appearance in a parade came in 1989. During 1989 and 1990, a total of 44 world speed flight records in its weight class were set. In January 1992, Boris Yeltsin decided to end serial production of the Tu-160; 35 aircraft were completed by this time. Russia also unilaterally suspended flights of strategic aviation over remote regions. A total of 19 Tu-160s were based inside
14400-402: Was the sixth-most used language on the top 1,000 sites, behind English, Chinese, French, German, and Japanese. Despite leveling after 1900, especially in matters of vocabulary and phonetics, a number of dialects still exist in Russia. Some linguists divide the dialects of Russian into two primary regional groupings, "Northern" and "Southern", with Moscow lying on the zone of transition between
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