Tiksi West Air Base

The air base was closed due to the massive military restructuring and severe budget cuts that followed the end of the Cold War and the subsequent dissolution of the Soviet Union. Its specific strategic mission was either deemed obsolete or was consolidated with other airfields as part of a broad drawdown of Soviet forces in the Arctic. The prohibitive cost of maintaining such a remote and harsh-environment base was a major contributing factor.

The site is completely abandoned and in a state of advanced decay. Satellite imagery and ground-level reports show crumbling runways, taxiways, and derelict support buildings. The infrastructure has been heavily weathered by the extreme Arctic climate. It is entirely non-operational and is slowly being reclaimed by the tundra. The area is littered with debris from its operational period and is not used for any official purpose.

Tiksi West was a significant Cold War strategic air base for the Soviet Long Range Aviation (Dalnyaya Aviatsiya). It served as a forward operating base, or 'staging airfield' (aerodrom podskoka), primarily for strategic bombers and maritime reconnaissance aircraft. Its key role was to host Tupolev Tu-95 'Bear' aircraft, specifically the Tu-95RTS (NATO reporting name: 'Bear-D') variant. These aircraft were instrumental in monitoring United States Navy carrier groups and submarine activity in the Arctic Ocean, North Atlantic, and North Pacific. The base's location provided a crucial vantage point for projecting Soviet air power and conducting surveillance over the polar regions, forming a vital part of the USSR's northern strategic defense shield.

There are no known plans or credible prospects for reopening Tiksi West Air Base. All Russian military and civilian investment in the region's aviation infrastructure is focused on the comprehensive modernization of the main, active Tiksi Airport (ICAO: UEST). The main airport is undergoing significant upgrades to its runway and facilities to accommodate all modern types of military and civilian aircraft, making the revival of a separate, derelict Cold War-era airfield a few kilometers away economically and strategically redundant.