Ukraine continues to endure increasingly numerous nightly bombings daily. The most commonly used device is the Shahed drone, of Iranian design, of which Russia already produces nearly 200 per day and expects to reach 500 every 24 hours in a few months. Every night, the skies of Ukrainian cities are filled with tracer bullets and beams of light searching for these devices, which buzz like a moped but are capable of carrying a 50-kilogram explosive warhead to cause serious damage to buildings or infrastructure.
But the distance from Moscow to Kiev is the same as from Kiev to Moscow. Some months ago, Ukrainians introduced their own line of long-range drones, called Lutyi, with a very different design but equal lethality, which also daily bombards targets in deep Russia, sometimes over 1,000 kilometers away from the front line.
Almost all of these low-cost devices are usually shot down, but those that manage to bypass the anti-aircraft defenses of both sides not only manage to saturate all these systems, whose ammunition is often more expensive than the drones themselves, but also hit unprotected areas such as refineries, bases, or communication nodes.
This Thursday, Ukraine attacked the Engels base with its drones, located in the Saratov region, southwest of Russia. It is one of the most important military installations of the Russian Air Force and home to the long-range strategic bombers Tupolev Tu-160 Blackjack and Tu-95MS Bear. These are the same aircraft that, night after night, launch missiles from inside Russia against Ukraine, such as the Kh-101 cruise missile and the hypersonic Kh-95 missile. It is striking that a high-value target like Engels is not protected against this type of attack. In the videos, at least one drone can be seen hitting what could be ammunition depots.
A large explosion destroyed the base's powder magazines, full of missiles. The mushroom cloud was visible for kilometers, and the shockwave (followed by secondary explosions from the combustion of the ammunition) destroyed the surrounding dachas. Satellite images have not yet arrived to indicate if there were planes on the runways near that area, but with that explosion, they may have suffered damage.
According to open-source images (Oryx), Russia has already lost four Tu-22M3 and one Tu95MS, Soviet strategic bombers almost impossible to replace due to their high cost and the complexity of their assembly. Many parts were manufactured before the fall of the USSR in countries that are no longer part of the Russian Federation, making spare parts for these aircraft scarce. Their production lines were closed in the 1990s.
Ukraine has launched its local drone production not only with short-range ones, intended to destroy armored vehicles or combat Russian infantry, but also naval, land, and long-range drones. Sometimes, these designs are proprietary, like the Palianytsia missile drone, a long-range projectile that can be remotely guided, and other times it is a homemade but effective solution, such as robotizing a Aeroprakt-22 sports plane into a powerful drone with a range of over 1,000 kilometers.
This local industry, which already accounts for 55% of all the weaponry used by Ukraine, is fueled not only by funds from Kiev's allies but also by interests obtained from Russian assets confiscated abroad. Yesterday, Denys Shmyhal, Prime Minister of Ukraine, announced that his country has received one billion dollars this week from these Russian investments.
The newspaper Kommersant, one of the most important newspapers in Russia, reported yesterday that Putin wants Trump to recognize the regions of Crimea, Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhia as parts of Russia. In exchange, Putin would not make any claims on Odesa and other areas of Ukraine. The curious thing is that these four regions have not been fully conquered (in the case of Kherson and Zaporizhia, Russia does not even control their capitals) and Odesa remained out of reach of Russian troops, defeated by Ukraine in the early weeks of the invasion in the neighboring Mykolaiv.
Yesterday, Vladimir Putin signed a new law to deport residents of the occupied territories in Ukraine if they do not accept Russian passports. This warning, which constitutes a war crime, is based on a combination of laws imposed by Russia in the occupied areas and the internal legal framework of the Russian Federation. In April 2023, Putin signed a decree requiring residents of the occupied regions (Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporizhia, and Kherson) to accept Russian citizenship or face expulsion. According to Russian laws, foreigners without proper documentation can be deported if they are deemed a "security threat". Article 7 of the Rome Statute defines the deportation or forcible transfer of population as a crime against humanity.