Dozens of long-range Ukrainian kamikaze drones hit Russian military and infrastructure targets hundreds of kilometers apart on Friday, in one of the most ambitious air strike operations yet launched by Kyiv against its massive eastern opponent.
Hits and damage were confirmed by multiple sources following attacks against a critical Russian air defense site on the western shore of the occupied Crimea peninsula and at a refinery in Russia’s Rostov region, on the other side of the Black Sea.
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A third drone raid probably hit a Russian naval base on the Black Sea eastern shore or an oil-processing plant in that vicinity, but by afternoon on Friday Kyiv Post could not confirm details.
The most visually spectacular Ukrainian success appeared to have been carried out by more than thirty one-way drone aircraft, flying in two waves, that targeted the Atlas oil processing and storage depot in Russia’s southwestern Rostov region, near the village of Kamensk-Shakhtinsky.
The explosives-toting robot aircraft blowing up on impact sparked two major fuel reservoir fires. Images showed orange flames and smoke plumes reaching hundreds of meters into the sky. No casualties were reported.
Ukraine’s main military intelligence directorate, HUR, took responsibility for the strike, which it said was carried out in cooperation with army special operations teams and unmanned aircraft operators.
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Local social media images confirmed the HUR claims and showed fires burning fiercely twelve hours after the attack. Following a HUR drone strike against the facility in August, fires burned at the refinery for two weeks before emergency response teams could extinguish them.
Rostov authority official announcements by midday had neither acknowledged the attack took place nor reported damage at the refinery.
A tactically-critical Russian air defense site on the west coast of Crimea, near the village of Kurganne, was hit shortly after sunrise on Friday as well. Images of explosions and contrails from out-of-control missiles or rockets spread across local news platforms and social media.
Russian air defense forces have deployed advanced air defense systems to occupied Crimea’s western shore for almost a decade, with the primary mission of overwatching Black Sea air space and potential strikes launched from Ukraine’s Odesa and Mykolaiv regions. By 2024, a permanent S-400 air defense missile site was in operation near Kurganne village.
Ukrainian milbloggers reported that Ukrainian missiles or drones had hit a Russian S-300 or S-400 anti-aircraft missile battery and badly damaged the system by detonating its missiles on the ground. The usually reliable geo-location research group, CyberBrosheno, said it was an S-400, Russia’s most advanced air defense system in wide use.
Local authorities claimed the explosions were planned destruction of outdated ammunition.
Video reviewed by Kyiv Post and geo-located to a viewpoint about a kilometer inland from the seashore was consistent with a heavy missile battery in the vicinity of the Kurganne air defense site blowing up following multiple strikes, but, it wasn’t possible to determine the exact weapon used in the attack or the precise types of missile blowing up on the ground.
A third probable Ukrainian strike hit in the vicinity of the Russian Black Sea port city of Tuapse on Friday. Ukrainian government spokesman Petro Andriushchenko said that 20 Ukrainian drones flew 650 kilometers (404 miles) to hit the Tuapse Prsneft oil refinery between 2 and 3 a.m., and that at least 14 aircraft reached their target and exploded. Some local social media seemed to tally with Andriushchenko’s claim.
Ukrainian and Russian milbloggers, before sunrise on Friday morning, reported smoke in the vicinity of Russian repair wharves in the eastern Black Sea port city of Tuapse. Social media images showed low black clouds of smoke covering part of the waterfront. It was not possible to determine from the images the source of the smoke.
According to the open source research group SentinelHub, the Russian heavy amphibious assault ship “Petr Morgunov,” which normally is based in Novorossisk – even further from potential Ukrainian drone site than Tuapse or Crimea – had been tied up at Tuapse port for repairs at the time of the strike, and may have been the Ukrainian target. The platform estimated the ship’s location at the grid 44.0928434 39.0678086.
Ukraine’s evolving air strike strategy against Russia has increasingly used three-step tactics, first launching expendable drones to find the locations of Russian air defenses, next attacking Russian air defense systems capable of shooting at incoming drones, and finally sending in waves of kamikaze drones or, more rarely, high-tech cruise or ballistic missiles through the gap created in Russian air defenses.
Ukraine’s wide-ranging drone strikes against Russia and occupied Crimea on Friday came one day after Russian air defenders reported coveys of Ukrainian drones targeting Russia’s Krasnodar region, Bryansk region, Russia-controlled Crimea, and Rostov region.
Ukraine kicked off a campaign to bombard targets in Russia-controlled territory long-range with isolated strikes in early 2024.
Since then Ukraine’s drone bombardment campaign has gained pace, with reconnaissance flights taking place almost nightly and major attacks with dozens of aircraft coming three or more times a month.
Most often, the Ukrainians have targeted Russian energy infrastructure and military manufacturing, but military headquarters and even troop concentrations also have been hit. The furthest targets hit by the Ukrainians so far have been about 1,800 kilometers (1,118 miles) from likely launch sites.
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