Drone Attacks Are Now Seen 2,000 Kilometers Inside of Russia

Russia has reported a growing number of drone attacks deep inside its territory, with some reaching nearly 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) from the Ukrainian border, further testing the country’s air defenses as the war expands.

Drones were detected in industrial hubs in the Ural Mountains and the oil-rich region of Tyumen in Siberia.

Ukraine said at the end of last year that its drones are able to hit targets in Russia at distances of up to 1,800 kilometers. Still, Russian authorities haven’t attributed any of these drones to Ukraine and Kyiv hasn’t claimed responsibility for most of them, deepening the mystery over the strikes at sites deep inside Russia.

“Ukrainian long-range drone-missiles are demonstrating growing effectiveness,” President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a social media post after a meeting with security service chief Vasyl Maliuk to discuss strike operations. “We are also achieving significant results in destroying Russian air defense systems.

On Wednesday, several industrial enterprises in the Sverdlovsk region about 1,700 kilometers east of Moscow introduced preemptive-response measures against the threat from drone attacks, local authorities said on Telegram. They included evacuating employees and restricting mobile internet access, according to local media, though it remains unclear if any attack took place in the region.

Earlier this week, though, officials said three drones were destroyed on the territory of an industrial enterprise in the city of Tyumen, about 2,000 kilometers from the Ukrainian border. Air-defense systems were heard operating near a local oil refinery, local media reported.

“Extending the range allows Ukraine to hold more targets at risk deeper into Russia, and further complicates the challenge for Moscow in providing air defense,” said Douglas Barrie, senior fellow for Military Aerospace at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Since mid-September, drones have also been destroyed in two locations in the Perm region in the Ural Mountains. The targets included a major producer of ammonium nitrate in Berezniki, a key component in explosives, and the Metafrax Chemicals plant in Gubakha.

“Such ranges may be achievable,” from Ukraine, said Denis Fedutinov, a Moscow-based expert on unmanned aerial vehicles. Still, the further drones penetrate into Russia, the higher the likelihood they were launched from outside Ukraine, he said.

In June, Ukraine carried out a dramatic series of strikes across Russia using drones hidden in trucks to hit strategic airfields as far away as eastern Siberia.

In a social media post at that time, Zelenskiy said Ukraine used 117 drones with people operating inside Russia across three time zones.