Pictures: Russian airbase in Syria has new hangars to protect aircraft

Pictures have emerged showing the presence of new hangars at the Russian-operated Hmeimim Airbase in Syria that were recently installed to protect fighter aircraft housed at the site.
The airbase, located on country’s Mediterranean coastline, has immense strategic value for it houses the vast majority of the warplanes that carry-out the enduring Russian air campaign over Syria.
For the longest time, Russian warplanes (valued at tens of millions of US dollars per unit) based at Hmeimim in Syria were completely exposed, being parked-out in the open near the main runway with no sheltering facilities.
Time and time again, Syrian militants located in the country’s northwest have tried to destroy these Russian aircraft with attacks using long range rockets and GPS-guided, bomblet-dropping drones.
Whilst the new hangar facilities are not hardened designs, they still serve the purpose of protecting Russia’s warplanes in Syria from small-munition weapons as well as keeping the aircraft out of sight from spying satellites that have in the past so often photographed the base and released their images to the public.

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