Day 1159
On 27 April, there are a lot of interesting updates from the Russian Federation. Here, flying deep behind Russian lines, Ukrainian long-range drones delivered a devastating blow to the only Russian Shahed production facility. Long-range drones loaded with 250 kilogram bombs tore through the final assembly line, throwing all Russian strike plans into disarray.
The Ukrainian strike happened at Yelabuga, located over 1,200 kilometers away from the frontline. The Ukrainians used six drones for the strike on the main Shahed assembly facility, of which five Ukrainian drones managed to reach and directly strike their target despite Russian air defenses being present. The strike led to severe damage to the final assembly line of the drone production facility, creating a bottleneck and disrupting the entire production process within the factory.
This assembly is the most technologically complex segment, without which the rest of the drone production process cannot be completed. Targeting this facility hampers Russia’s ability to produce new Shaheds, thereby severely impacting its ability to continue its daily drone strikes on Ukraine.
For the strike, Ukrainians used small A-22 light training planes repurposed as drones to strike critical Russian military and economic infrastructure far beyond the frontline. These drones have a maximum flight range of over 1,500 kilometers, with integrated GPS inertial guidance to conduct precision strikes. Each of these drones has an integrated payload of 250 kilograms, able to collapse the facility’s roof, already damaging production machinery, which was then followed by the next drone striking the factory floor itself, finishing the job.
The destruction of the assembly line at the Alabuga facility throws a massive wrench into Russian plans, as the Russians are exerting considerable effort to scale up production and increase the number of Shahed drone strikes. Since the launch of this factory, which produced 300 Shahed drones daily before the Ukrainians hit it, Russia has steadily increased the number of Shahed strikes each month. Following the completion of the Alabuga drone production complex, the Russians continued to increase their production output, launching a massively increased number of Shahed drone strikes in the past 6 months. This number could have risen to 9,000 by the end of April, prompting the Ukrainians to urgently develop a plan to strike the Russian Shahed production facility.
The strike on the Alabuga plant was additionally prompted by the recent Russian development of an analogue to Ukraine’s Palianytsia jet-propelled drone. The upgraded Shahed, called the Geranium-3, features a turbojet engine for increased speed, raising from 200 kilometers per hour to 600.
This enhancement makes it much harder for Ukrainian mobile air defense units to intercept them, primarily relying on truck-mounted machine guns and autocannons to take down the Shaheds.
Western sources report that the Alabuga factory was a key producer of these new Russian jet-powered Shahed drones. With the new drones being significantly more difficult to intercept for conventional Ukrainian mobile air defense units, Ukraine would have had to rely on more expensive and very limited missile defense systems to protect its cities.
Destroying Russian production capabilities before these drones could be produced and implemented on a larger scale was a strategic play to prevent the Russians from exploiting weak spots in Ukrainian air defense, while the laser air defense is still in the early stages.
This also shows that Ukrainians know the locations of these critical Russian factories, and can continue to target them if they struggle to intercept the new Shaheds. While Ukrainians have many potential targets to hit, they must choose wisely due to the amount of time needed to plan and set conditions for such complex aerial operations, making it impossible to strike every location simultaneously.
Overall, the Ukrainians conducted a precision strike the largest and most important Russian drone production facility, over a thousand kilometers away from the frontline, causing massive damage to its production capabilities and greatly diminishing the number of drones available for further Russian strikes. The effects of the Ukrainian strike will be evident, with the planned Russian increase of Shahed strikes not becoming a reality. Lastly, the strike demonstrates Ukraine’s constant awareness of potential Russian threats, making educated decisions on which facilities to hit with the most urgency, to achieve the most significant effect.
In our daily frontline report, we pair up with the military blogger Reporting from Ukraine to keep you informed about what is happening on the battlefield in the Russo-Ukrainian war.
Read also:
- Frontline report: New British truck turns Russian drones into electronic confetti — and Ukraine wants it bad
- Frontline report: Ukraine just blew up a year’s worth of Russian ammo — six million shells, gone
- Frontline report: Ukraine forms new elite Azov-led Army Corps near critical Toretsk sector
