Report: Ukraine Drones Attempted to Hit Russian Gas Facility Near Moscow
BBC: “Russian energy giant Gazprom operates a facility about ….100 km (62 miles) from Moscow, where the drone crashed.”
For the first time since the war began a year ago, Ukrainians have reportedly attempted to carry out a drone strike deep inside the Russian heartland. The Russian military on Tuesday claimed to have downed a Ukrainian attack drone near Moscow.
The drone apparently traveled nearly 500 miles into Russian airspace aimed at a state-owned natural gas facility. “Russian energy giant Gazprom operates a facility near the village of Gubastovo, about 100 km (62 miles) from Moscow, where the drone crashed,” the BBC reported.
The UK newspaper Guardian reported.
A military drone attempted to strike a gas facility in the Moscow region, according to a senior Russian official, and photos of the wreckage suggested it was Ukrainian-made, indicating a rare attempted strike hundreds of miles behind Russian lines.
The alleged attack was one of several reports of successful or attempted unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) strikes in at least four regions of Russia.
The Moscow region governor, Andrei Vorobyov, on Monday confirmed a UAV crash-landed in the village of Gubastovo near the capital and was apparently aiming for a “civilian infrastructure site”.
The target was a Gazprom gas compression station in the Moscow suburbs, just over 50 miles south-east of the Kremlin. Photographs of the drone posted to social media indicate it was a Ukrainian-made UJ-22.
Multiple drone strikes by the Ukrainian military were also reported in Crimea, a Black Sea peninsula Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
The British newspaper Telegraph reported Wednesday:
Russia’s defence ministry on Wednesday claimed it had thwarted what it described as a massive Ukrainian drone attack on Crimea.
“Six Ukrainian strike unmanned vehicles were shot down by air defense systems. Four more were disabled by electronic warfare,” the defence ministry said.
Russia has suffered a series of high-profile suspected drone attacks in recent days, both along the border with Ukraine and deep inside its territory, with one unmanned aircraft of a Ukrainian design crashing near an oil facility just 60 miles from Moscow on Tuesday.
If the strike, along with others on Tuesday, were launched from Ukrainian territory, then it would make them some of the most ambitious since the Kremlin launched its full-scale invasion last February.
A drone strike deep inside the Russian territory might indicate a change in Ukrainian tactics as the battle intensifies in the country’s east. The Associated Press reported Tuesday:
While the attacks apparently did not inflict any significant damage, their number and scope posed a new challenge to Russia as the war dragged into a second year. One assault came as close as 100 kilometers (60 miles) from Moscow.
Some observers said the strikes could be a rehearsal for a broader Ukrainian attack on facilities deep inside Russia.
Drone Strike Destroys Russian Surveillance Aircraft in Belarus, Reports Claim
The Ukrainian strikes come days after the Belarusian anti-government forces claimed responsibility for a drone attack on a high-value Russian surveillance aircraft at an airfield near the Belarus capital of Minsk.
Aerial imagery later seems to confirm their claims. A “satellite image has emerged of the Beriev A-50 aircraft on the tarmac of the Belarusian airfield where it was reportedly attacked,” Sky News UK reported Monday. “The A-50 can be seen on the left of the image of Machulishchy air base.”
The A-50, which carries a price tag of nearly $350 million, is the most advanced surveillance aircraft in the Russian arsenal. “The Beriev A-50 aircraft, which has the NATO reporting name of Mainstay, is a Russian airborne early warning aircraft, with airborne command and control capabilities, and the ability to track up to 60 targets at a time,” the UK broadcaster explained.
Report: Russian Forces Encircling Key Town of Bakhmut
After months of intense fighting, the Russian ground forces are pushing to take the strategic town of Bakhmut, which could clear the way for Moscow to bring the entire eastern Donbas region under its control.
President Volodymyr Zelensky, who in recent months repeatedly vowed to fight for the city ‘to the last,’ admitted that it was getting “more and more difficult” to hold it amid mounting Russian assaults. The Times of London reported Tuesday:
The situation in Bakhmut is becoming “more and more difficult” as Russian troops advance on the Ukrainian city, President Zelensky has said.
“The enemy is constantly destroying everything that can be used to protect our positions. Our soldiers defending the area around Bakhmut are true heroes,” Zelensky said in his evening address.
Other Western news outlets also shared the grim assessment. “Ukrainian forces say the situation in the eastern city of Bakhmut is extremely tense as Russian troops intensify their assault. They say Russia is trying to cut Ukrainian supply lines to the city and force them to surrender or withdraw,” the German state TV Deutsche Welle reported Wednesday.
The news agency Reuters also reported possible Russian encirclement of the city, writing: “Russian forces carried out relentless attacks on Bakhmut on Wednesday, trying to encircle the small eastern Ukrainian city and claim their first major prize for more than half a year after some of the bloodiest fighting of the war.”
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The strike on the A-50 surveillance A/C appears to be false or at least over-hyped. Just like other stuff in Biden’s money laundering “war”.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/first-image-of-russian-a-50-radar-jet-after-claimed-attack-in-belarus
It sure looks real to me. A small but direct strike on a critical point on the airplane.
So, after Ukraine uses NATO weapons to attack Russian soil, what stops Russia from attacking NATO soil in response?
If the supply lines of russia behind the border are fair game, aren’t the supply lines of Ukraine behind other borders fair game?
We are sleepwalking into WW3. Or worse, the puppeteers behind Biden are doing this on purpose.
I don’t understand why donating war supplies, weapons, or munitions isn’t considered an act of war.
It is an act of war.
However, Mr. 10% needs to increase his take.
We’ll probably for the same reason we didn’t blow the fuck out of Iran for their arming of the terrorists in Iraq.
Because if it was then we would have been at war with Russia generations ago. They’ve never hesitated to arm the enemies the United States has been at war with. For Russia to complain now is kind of laughable.
That’s what I am pointing out. It’s an odd thing that everybody just agrees that a blatantly hostile act isn’t. It seems to be a time honored position.
Americans on conservative websites have adopted the same slogans used by Russian trolls commenting on Engish language websites during 2013-2014 Maidan.
The NATO strawman, the “UKR are fascists,” or Ukraine is teeming with fascists! They all belong to the Azov Brigade; all are anti-semitic, Russian forces are safeguarding Russian expats in the Don river basin; Ukrainians forcing Russians to use the Ukrainian language in Ukraininan public schools and official correspondence, that Crimea has always belonged to Russia, that Ukrainians are enforcing religious standards on Russian Orthodox churchgoers. That KeveanRus is a myth.
Its endless. They prattle on and on about Ukrainian corruption and Zelenski while turning a blind eye to imported Russian corruption.
Most of the arguments are ahistorical or simply ignorant. I refuse to forget the past 500 years of Russian history and especially its 20th century history – or to be told it no longer applies.
It is also identical to what the USA has been doing for generations. We called it “supporting democracy across the globe” but its still amounted to arming the enemies of the former Soviet Union and now Russia.
We don’t stand in a particularly virtuous position.
But that wasn’t the point. It wasn’t that we’re virtuous or that we hadn’t done that, it’s that arming Russia’s enemies isn’t an act of war. Russia did exactly that in numerous wars. Russia has no reason to complain when we do the same thing they do.
Personally I have zero sympathy for Russia’s position, and not just because I want them driven out of Ukraine. Not even because they armed our enemies. It’s because they actively spread the filthy religion of communism around the globe, something we’re still dealing with even after it collapsed in the USSR.
Going clear back to the Korean war, the Russians have armed and assisted anybody opposed to the US. In Korea they even flew Russian jets — with Russian pilots.
I was a Marine pilot in the Vietnam fight and the Russians also had their pilots fly against us with no repercussions from LBJ (D TX). Every conflict we have been involved in has had Russian or Chinese aid for the opposing side and we have done nothing about it. I believe that because of the past, the US believes that the opposing nations will honor this policy. There is of course no reason to believe this but Biden and the EU act like Russia is a reasonable nation with insane Putin totally in charge. The fact is that, unlike Trump, Biden is completely missing from this equation. No offered negotiations and no pressure on Zelensky to meet with Putin. If we thought the Cuban missile crisis was a nuclear war trip wire, what in hell is this?
Russian officers and crews manning surface to air missile batteries in North Vietnam – and were reponsible for the death of our airmen.
And now the very people that take offense at the leftwing distortion of the Vietnam war – its memory and history – and how our servicemen and women were treated are now engaging in the same sort of distortion and outright lies told by Russian red-brown third way Alekzander Dugin apparatchiks regarding Ukraine.
When the Russians attacked Ukraine the first thing that Quisling Biden did was reassure Putin that we wouldn’t send forces into Ukraine to fight against him. With this declaration Quisling Biden earned the millions in bribes that Putin had given him. You need to remember that at the start of this war the world expected Russia to easily conquer Ukraine and the only risk was US and NATO forces fighting alongside the Ukrainians.
“behind other borders”
It doesn’t take much for a fig leaf to count, if you’re looking to find a fig leaf that’ll count.
Due to the cowardice of Western leaders Ukraine is NOT using Western weapons to attack Russian soil. Ukraine is forced to rely on leftover Soviet weapons and homebuilt weapons. That’s why so many of these attempts fail. If we had a President with cojones the war would be won by now.
They would lose if they attacked NATO.
Interesting loss on the propaganda front. The drones got 500 miles into Russia. Were targeting facilities, not civilians. Nobody got killed.
Russian deep strikes into Ukraine get presented very differently.
Curious. The Russians used to be way better at this kind of thing. You’d think Active Measures would be a core competence for a govt run by a KGB guy.
Russia is targeted civilians.
Maybe, but it’s kinda hard to tell with the Ukranians pulling a Palestinian and putting their military right next to the civilians.
That, and the Kiev-aligned military/paramilitary axis are and have been attacking civilians for over eight years since the inception of the fateful Slavic Spring in the 2014 Biden/Maidan coup.
You’ve got it backwards. For the past 10 years Russian irregular troops (criminals) occupying the Donbas river basin have been kidnapping and murdering Ukrainian citizens.
Like how Ukraine just threatened the life of an NBC reporter who interviewed people in Crimea who turned out to be overwhelmingly pro-Russia?
Putting protection next to the things you are protecting is now wrong? Bizzaro world.
Pallywood lobes your argument. They are just putting those rocket launchers in the hospitals to protect it, you see.
Just like when Ukraine stationed soldiers out of a school and then used the destruction of that military force to say “See! Those evil men are targeting schools!”
It simply isn’t intellectually honest.
“Maybe?” There’s no “maybe” about it. Russia has flat-out targeted civilians, and no, not because Ukraine has been putting its civilians in harms way.
I haven’t kept up lately. In the beginning Ukraine was putting military assets in civilian areas and then complaining when they got hit.
We don’t have a problem pointing out when Palestinians dishonestly do the same thing and we shouldn’t have a problem pointing it out when others do it, either.
@ Dathurtz “I haven’t kept up lately.”
Okay.
@tiki
Yeah. When Ukraine intentionally and habitually lies while getting caught staging their live shots, it lets honest people know they can’t be trusted.
I get that some people have a hate hard-on for Russia, but I don’t understand why that makes them discard their own honesty and principled discernment.
But, you do you.
We are not “sleepwalking” into it. It is intentional. Biden knows his legacy is going to be one of abject failure unless he becomes a war time leader. The main lesson of the Bush family.
The first Iraq was sustained by Clinton, ended with Bush through trial of Hussein. Clinton invaded Serbia then carved out and established Kosovo. Clinton engaged in other wars of no consequence in the dark continent. Obama started the second Iraq war with a premature evacuation and direct transfer of funds secured through overriding claims against the Iranian proxy. Obama started the Slavic Spring in the World War Spring series from Tripoli to Cairo to Damascus to Baghdad to Kabul to Kiev and other places of no consequence. Biden is working to secure Obama’s legacy, and recently traveled to Kiev in order to feather his trail in what… Spring-gate with “benefits”.
Anyone know where I can get Potassium Iodide in bulk?
That place seems out of range to Ukrainian drones.
If I may, a bit of candor.
1) Unlike laws within a sovereign state, enforced by both the Social Contract of that state’s culture and the coercive organs of state power; International Law [ including the laws of war] does not have a Social Contract or a universally accepted enforcement method.
2) Thus, international law is “enforced” by the applications of competing state power. If the state can get away with it, it is legal. Power is the only enforcement method, as opposing cultures and societies do not have the same assumptions and as Clausewitz said, Der Krieg ist eine bloße Fortsetzung der Politik mit anderen Mitteln. War is merely a continuation of Politics by other means.
3) In the absence of shared concepts or morality, good and evil, and right and wrong; it is force that determines. In the absence of those shared concepts, force works if you succeed.
4) Russia attacked Ukraine, in violation of a fecal load of treaties and agreements. In return, the Ukraine has fought back, surprisingly effectively. By some more Western concepts that makes the Ukrainians the good guys and the Russians the bad guys. In the Russian Weltanschauung, it is just the opposite. Regardless, the perceptions of good or evil have no effect. It is the application of power.
5) Russia has attacked civilian areas, utilities, and indeed nuclear power plants [somehow without attracting the shock and horror of the Western version of the Left] all over the interior of the Ukraine. Is it not rational for the Ukraine to do the same thing to Russian civilian areas, utilities, etc. as they develop the ability to do so? If not, why not?
6) It is not a good thing, but it is inevitable unless the Ukraine just surrenders. In wartime, if one side can do something there is no non-power based reason or ability to make the other side refrain from doing the same thing.
7) Foreign involvement is, due to the lack of the enforcement methods discussed above, based on what each sovereign nation state views as its own best interests. Or perhaps more accurately, mostly based on what the rulers of the nation think is in their own best interests.
There are differences in the views of Americans over what our government is doing in re the Ukrainian-Russian war. There is nothing wrong with that. What is wrong is that Americans functionally have no influence on what the American government does, either way.
Subotai Bahadur
Is there some rule that says that Ukraine is only allowed to fight back within its own territory? Russia invaded them, and they’re supposed to restrict their efforts to only the Russian forces within their own borders?
Yeah, yeah, I know, “BUT WORLD WAR THREE!” and all that, but I don’t understand why Russia thinks that its not a target in a war it started.
Totally agree.
Is it because there is some weird condition that was placed on the donated war materials regarding its use? If you can blow up my infrastructure, then yours is fair game, too.