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- cross-posted to:
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It’s the deepest Ukrainian drone strike of the war, so far
A month after Ukraine began bombarding targets inside Russia with explosives-laden sports planes modified for remote flight, one of the do-it-yourself drones has struck an oil refinery in the city of Salavat, more than 800 miles from the front line of Russia’s wider war on Ukraine.
It is, by far, Ukraine’s longest-range raid—and an escalation of Ukraine’s deep-strike campaign targeting Russian refineries, factories and strategic military sites.
And it’s at least the fourth attempted deep strike involving Ukraine’s sport-plane drones. Videos shot by people on the ground in Salavat clearly depict the wide straight wings, fixed wheels and propeller that are typical of an inexpensive sport plane, the kind a middle-class pilot can build at home from a kit costing as little as $90,000.
I thought the exact same thing! At the time, I’d heard rumors that the entirety of USSR’s air defense was smoke and mirrors. This isn’t helping to refute those decades old rumors, if there is anything to refute.
It is also possible that they chose not to shoot down the plane back then, because they didn’t want a third world war and it became clear not to be a war plane.
Times change a few years later, but I wouldn’t bank on that non-escalation theory here.
Korean Air flight 007