43rd Center for Combat Employment and Retraining of Flight Personnel
The 43rd Centre for Combat Use and Retraining of Flight Personnel is a Russian military aviation training unit based at Engels-2 airbase in Saratov Oblast. It trains crews for the Russian Air Force's long-range aviation, including pilots of strategic bombers. Since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Engels airbase has been used to launch strikes against Ukrainian territory, including attacks on Kyiv.
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Assassination attempt on Russian general in Engels days after Ukraine notified him of suspicion over Okhmatdyt strike
An unknown assailant on a motorcycle shot and critically wounded a Russian Aerospace Forces officer on the morning of 3 September in the settlement of Probuzhdeniye near Engels, Saratov Oblast. Russian media identified the victim as Major General Mykola Varpakhovych, commander of the 22nd Guards Heavy Bomber Aviation Division. The attack came three days after Ukraine's SBU and the Office of the Prosecutor General notified Varpakhovych in absentia of suspicion in connection with the July 2024 missile strike on the Okhmatdyt children's hospital in Kyiv.