New satellite imagery shows Russia has built several drone launchers on the runway at an airport near the front lines in an occupied region of Ukraine.
Russian long-range drone launch sites near the front lines could pose a major threat to Ukraine because they reduce the time Kyiv has to respond to and defend against attacks, conflict analysts say. However, the short distance may also make the sites more vulnerable to strikes.
An image captured on Sunday by Maxar Technologies and reviewed by Business Insider shows launch rails and drone storage sheds at the main airport in Donetsk, an embattled region in eastern Ukraine.
Russia occupies around 75% of Donetsk, including the airport. The image also shows extensive destruction to the airport terminal and other facilities from years of fighting.
The airport, located just northwest of Donetsk city, is less than two dozen miles from the front. It stopped operations in 2014 after Russia’s initial invasion of the Donbas, which consists of eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
The Donbas has seen some of the fiercest fighting since Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Pokrovsk, a war-torn city in Donetsk that remains under Kyiv’s control, is one of the hottest and most brutal sectors of the front lines.
Ukrainian open-source intelligence group Cyberboroshno reported in early August that Russia had constructed infrastructure on the runway at the Donetsk airport to support the launch of Shahed-style one-way attack drones, destructive Iranian-designed loitering munitions that Moscow has used to attack Ukraine relentlessly for three years.
According to information from Maxar, construction of the launch positions at the Donetsk airport began between late May and early June, and since then, that infrastructure has continued to expand.
Kyle Glen, an investigator at the UK-based Centre for Information Resilience who monitors Russian drone operations, told Business Insider it is unusual for the base to be so close to the front lines. Other known drone launch sites are much deeper inside Russian territory.
“Long-range drone launch sites closer to the frontline will reduce the reaction time for Ukrainian air defenses,” analysts at the Institute for the Study of War, a US think tank, said earlier this month.
“Russian forces have been launching long-range strike drones from occupied Ukraine, and Russia’s continued use of occupied Ukraine for such strikes will increasingly threaten” both Ukraine and NATO if Russia continues to occupy the land, the analysts wrote.
Reporting indicates that Russia has converted other civilian airports within occupied Ukrainian territory into drone launch sites, including on the Crimean peninsula, which Moscow seized from Kyiv in 2014.
While there are certain advantages, Donetsk airport’s proximity to the front could backfire for Russia. Glen said the Russian base is more vulnerable to Ukrainian strikes, which don’t necessarily require sophisticated weapons.
Brady Africk, an open-source intelligence analyst who has closely tracked and researched drone base developments, explained that “Russia often launches a combination of explosive attack drones and decoys in waves, which can stress Ukraine’s already-limited air defenses.” Ukraine has to take them out on the ground if it doesn’t want to face them in the air.
The challenge, Africk told Business Insider, is that “confronting these drones on the launch pad is difficult, as Russia can keep them in storage until close to the time they plan to launch them.”
Many drone launch sites are farther away
Russia also has a number of drone launch sites inside Russia — some of them with relatively new infrastructure — that are much farther from the Donetsk airport and the front lines, though not entirely out of Ukraine’s reach.
These include sites at Primorsko-Akhtarsk in the Krasnodar Krai region, Navlya in the Bryansk region, Tsimbulova in the Oryol region, Shatalovo in the Smolensk region, and Millerovo in the Rostov region.
Recent satellite images captured by Maxar and reviewed by Business Insider show infrastructure to support drone operations, including launch rails, runways, hardened shelters, and even what appears to be Shahed-style drones on the tarmac.
Despite the distance from the front line, Ukraine has proven that it is capable of attacking these bases. At the beginning of August, for instance, Kyiv said its drones struck Primorsko-Akhtarsk, some 150 miles away.
Ukraine has carried out drone strikes even farther than that, reaching hundreds of miles into Russian territory. Close-in sites could be less of a challenge for the Ukrainians. The Donetsk launch site, if left by Russia insufficiently defended, could be an easy target.
“Russia’s setup for launching drones from Donetsk airport mirrors what has been seen at other sites, with newly built storage areas and launch rails protected by berms,” Africk said.
Construction of the new Donetsk airport launch site comes amid a broader Russian investment in its one-way attack drone capabilities. It is producing thousands of drones modeled after the notorious Iranian-designed Shahed every month. And Moscow has consistently demonstrated that it can launch hundreds of them at Ukraine in a single night.
A recent assessment by the British defense ministry said that Russia launched 6,200 one-way attack drones at Ukraine in July, marking a new monthly high during the war. The scale of strikes subsided during the first three weeks of August.
However, on Thursday, Russia carried out its largest bombardment of the month, launching over 614 missiles and drones at Ukraine. Kyiv said that the 574 drones used in the attack came from the direction of Primorsko-Akhtarsk, Bryansk, Oryol, Shatalovo, Millerovo, and other regions.
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