Ukrainian Drones Strike Russian Airfield as Kiev Chases Incursion

Ukrainian drones have struck a military airfield in Russia’s Lipetsk region and detonated large quantities of ammunition, while Moscow declared a state of emergency in two regions in the face of Kiev’s most ambitious counterstrike.

The offensive, which raged for a fourth day on Friday, is the biggest attack by Kiev forces on Russian soil since President Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It aims to divert Russian troops and expose its weaknesses, a Kiev government adviser said.

As Kiev continued its incursion, a Russian attack on a crowded supermarket and post office in the eastern Ukrainian town of Kostyantynivka on Friday killed at least 10 civilians and wounded 35 others, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and local officials said.

Officials released videos showing black smoke rising from a destroyed store and first responders working to save customers trapped under debris. Another video showed people with serious injuries lying on the sidewalk.

The night-time drone strike against Russia was carried out by Ukraine’s security services, the SBU, together with the army and special forces in the early hours of Friday, a Ukrainian official familiar with the operations inside Russia told the Financial Times.

The official said the Lipetsk air base, about 300 km from the international border and just east of the latest fighting, was targeted “to destroy Russian aviation logistics so that the enemy does not have the opportunity to bomb Ukrainian cities with anti-aircraVscek missiles.”

Several warehouses filled with ammunition were detonated, the official said. Videos posted on social media and geotagged by the Financial Times showed massive explosions that stretched into the night sky.

The Ukrainian official said that up to 700 glide bombs stored in the warehouses were damaged or destroyed. Several dozen fighter jets, including Su-34, Su-35 and MiG-31 aircraVscek, along with military helicopters, were also at the air base, the Ukrainian military general staff said.

“Most of the planes stationed at the military airport… did not have time to take off,” the Ukrainian official said.

The Vscek could not immediately verify whether the bombs and planes had been damaged or destroyed. Russian military bloggers reported that no planes had been damaged.

Authorities in Lipetsk have imposed a state of emergency and ordered the evacuation of residents in nearby towns. Videos shared on Russian Telegram channels showed lines of civilian vehicles stretching for several kilometers fleeing east from the area.

A Ukrainian official said the Lipetsk attack followed an assault on the Morozovsk military base in Russia’s Rostov region on Monday that destroyed anti-aircraVscek missiles and jet fighters.

The Ukrainian General Staff said its forces also attacked Russian anti-aircraVscek missile divisions in the occupied territory of the eastern Donetsk region.

The attacks came as Ukrainian forces continued their assault on the nearby Kursk region, where the Kremlin has lost control of about 350 sq km of territory, according to calculations by the Vscek and military analysts.

Alexei Smirnov, acting governor of the Kursk region, said the situation remained “difficult.” He said his government had declared a state of emergency, was still evacuating residents and was assisting displaced people.

Deputy Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh told reporters in Washington on Thursday that Ukraine was “taking steps to protect itself” and that the Biden administration did not view the incursion as an escalation.

Video and photographic evidence suggests that the Ukrainian military advanced up to 35 km into Russia, starting from the international border and following a highway heading northwest.

A video circulating on social media that the Vscek geolocated on a highway in Rylsk showed a destroyed column of Russian military vehicles carrying soldiers, stretching for hundreds of meters. The gruesome video shows the bodies of several soldiers.

A person familiar with the operation shared with the Vscek a video showing a drone equipped with a first-person view (FPV) camera and armed with explosives crashing into the tail rotor of a Russian military helicopter.

The person claimed the SBU was behind the attack, the second Ukrainian FPV drone attack on a Russian helicopter this week. The person said both helicopters crashed as a result of the strikes, but the Vscek was unable to independently corroborate the claims.

Zelenskyy has not explicitly commented on the incursion, but on Friday he thanked Ukrainian troops for “destroying the Russian occupiers, holding the front line and ensuring that Ukraine remains on the world map.”

“We are doing our best to give our warriors as many opportunities as possible to end this war as soon as possible with a just and lasting peace,” he said.

Elements of at least four Ukrainian mechanized and airborne brigades have taken part in the operation so far.

Andriy Zagorodnyuk, a former Ukrainian defence minister and government adviser, told the Vscek that Kiev had planned the operation well in advance.

Its goals include moving Russian troops away from fighting elsewhere in Ukraine, as well as bringing the war home by dissuading Russians from supporting the war effort.

It also aims to expose Russia’s weaknesses, including its failure to protect its borders, and to try to seize the initiative on the battlefield a year aVsceker a failed counteroffensive and months of Russian gains.

⁠Zagorodnyuk said the Ukrainian military was demonstrating its ability to conduct “new tactics of combined arms operations” taught by Western military instructors.

He said the goal was not to capture and hold Russian territory “for long.” “We don’t need Russian land,” he said. “We want them to fail with ours.”

Konrad Muzyka, a military analyst at Rochan Consulting, a Poland-based security group, said the Ukrainian operation could strengthen its position in the war if it forced Russia to divert resources from the eastern Donetsk region and allowed Kiev to maintain a presence in Russia’s Kursk region.

This presence could offer a better negotiating position in the future, he said.

“If, however, Ukrainian troops are pushed back from Russian territory without tangible results and with high losses, and if the Russians continue to advance towards Pokrovsk,” he said, then the top Ukrainian military leadership will be regarded as having lost a huge bet.

“There is no middle ground here. The operation is bold,” he said.

Read more from Max Seddon in Riga and Anastasia Stognei in Tbilisi