A Russian Tu-95 strategic bomber crashed in the Amur region, in the Far East, during a training flight. Russia's Defence Ministry confirmed six dead. According to Russian media, there were seven servicemen on board - the only survivor was taken to hospital. The plane came down near the village of Krasnoyarovo.

The first reports from the ground told a completely different story: that a Tu-154 military transport plane had crashed. That version didn't last long. Footage taken just before the crash carries the distinctive sound of four turboprop engines - a sound the Tu-154, with its three jet engines, simply doesn't make. Only then came official confirmation: not a transport plane, but a missile-carrying bomber, one of the key aircraft in Russia's Long-Range Aviation.

The cause has not been officially established. Early unofficial reports mention a fuel explosion on board, but the ministry isn't confirming that for now. A commission is working at the crash site. The names of the dead haven't been released, and there's no word on the survivor's condition. First the wrong version, then a number, then a "commission" - how many times have we in the Balkans seen the same sequence when the army writes the press release?

This was no ordinary aircraft. According to Russian media, the bomber was linked to the Ukrainka air base, north of Belogorsk - one of the main strongholds of Russian strategic aviation in the Far East. The irony in the name is hard to miss. It's home to exactly the Tu-95MS, the air leg of Russia's nuclear triad, which regularly take off from there on training and patrol flights over the Pacific.

The Tu-95 is a Soviet-era machine, recognisable by its huge contra-rotating propellers. The upgraded Tu-95MS and Tu-95MSM variants are still among the main carriers of Russia's strategic cruise missiles, including the Kh-101, as well as nuclear versions of strategic weapons. Together with the Tu-160, it is one of the main airborne carriers of Russia's strategic arsenal. The standard crew of a Tu-95MS is seven - exactly the number, according to early reports, that were on the plane that crashed.

The investigation has to establish whether it was a technical fault, an engine problem, a fuel problem or something else. But when a plane that carries nuclear missiles in wartime falls out of the sky on a routine training flight, the question isn't only what broke on this particular airframe. It's what condition the others of the same vintage are in. Whether Moscow will say so publicly is another story entirely.