Satellite imagery shows damage at a new Russian drone base near the front lines in the wake of a massive Ukrainian attack on the facility last week.
The photos, captured by the US spatial intelligence firm Vantor and analyzed by Business Insider, capture the destruction of several buildings at the main airport in Donetsk, an embattled and occupied region in eastern Ukraine.
Russia started converting the airport into a drone base several months ago, installing launch rails and storage sheds on the runway to support its attacks against Ukraine. The development came amid a broader expansion of Moscow’s drone operations.
The Ukrainian military confirmed on November 6 that it had carried out a large missile and drone attack on the base the previous night, causing explosions and secondary blasts at the facility, which Russia used to store and launch deadly Shahed-type drones.
Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces, which participated in the attack alongside other military elements, shared combat footage apparently filmed from drones involved in the strikes.
The SOF said over 90% of its drones reached their targets during the attack, adding that it blew up a Shahed warehouse at the Donetsk airport. The reveal indicates that the buildings destroyed were being used as storage.
Kyle Glen, an investigator with the UK-based Centre for Information Resilience who monitors Russian drone operations, told Business Insider that Ukraine likely waited to attack the base until it thought that it could do the most damage.
“The launch site has been widely known about since the summer, but it hasn’t been heavily used by the Russians,” he said.
A new base for drone operations
The airport is located northwest of the city of Donetsk, less than two dozen miles from the front lines. Operations ceased in 2014 after Russia’s initial invasion of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, an area of the country that remains a site of fierce fighting now several years into the full-scale war, specifically the city of Pokrovsk.
Russia began constructing launch positions at the Donetsk airport in late May and early June, and in the following months, it continued to expand the infrastructure at the site.
The November images captured by Vantor show that the launch rails and storage sheds built earlier in the summer appear to be unscathed by the Ukrainian strikes.
The airport is considerably closer to the front lines than other known drone bases, which are typically located deeper inside Russian territory. Conflict analysts said that locations such as the Donetsk site reduce the reaction time for Ukrainian air defenses, but their proximity to the front could ultimately risk leaving them much more vulnerable to attack.
Glen said the strikes last week were not the first time Ukraine has targeted this base. He said this will likely “prove to Russia that launch sites close to the front line aren’t feasible.”
“It’s impossible to say for sure how many drones they lost, but based on the footage of the aftermath, it was significant,” he said.
Russia’s development of the Donetsk airport and new infrastructure at several other bases underscores a broader investment in its drone production and operations.
Russia is producing thousands of one-way attack drones based on the notorious Iranian-designed Shahed every month and has routinely launched hundreds of them at Ukraine in a single night over the past few months.
Western assessments suggest that Russia may eventually be able to launch 2,000 drones at Ukraine in one bombardment.
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