Footage appears to show Russian air defenses struggling against a fixed-wing drone flying 700 miles behind its borders

Business Insider

24-04-2025

Russian air defenses were seen battling a drone over the Yelabuga special economic zone on Wednesday, where Moscow builds its Shahed loitering munitions.
Footage on Russian and Ukrainian Telegram channels showed air-defense munitions struggling to destroy what appears to be a drone resembling a small airplane. Business Insider geolocated one of these clips, which was filmed by a person standing near an Aurus car factory in Yelabuga.
In the video, the flying object maneuvers over the special economic zone, avoiding munitions that miss and explode in midair.
:fire::fire::fire:WOW
Good Unknow Drones hit drone manufacturing plant in russia
1700 km from the border(:bangbang:)
In the video, the Pantsir-S1 missile defense system misses our drone, which is maneuvering before the attack. pic.twitter.com/2VrNVJbSxS
— Angelica Shalagina:flag-ua: (@angelshalagina) April 23, 2025
Yelabuga is some 700 miles from the Ukrainian border, making this one of Ukraine's longer-range drone attacks into Russia. There have been conflicting reports on the outcome, and it is unclear if Russia's Shahed production suffered any damage.
Andriy Kovalenko, the head of Ukraine's Center for Countering Disinformation, alluded to a strike in a Telegram post, writing of an event that occurred "somewhat loudly, and somewhat successfully in places" in Yelabuga.
He did not say directly that Ukraine had carried out a strike on Yelabuga, a 7.7 square-mile area in the Republic of Tatarstan that the White House said in 2023 was home to a joint Russian-Iranian facility for producing Shaheds.
Kovalenko wrote: "This year, the Russians have set a target of producing between 8,000 and 10,000 Shahed/Geran drones annually in Yelabuga, as well as 15,000 decoy drones."
As the video of the drone evading Russian defenses circulated on social media, the Telegram channel Operation Z, run by pro-Kremlin bloggers, posted a clip on Wednesday of a similar drone descending in a ball of flame after being struck by an air-defense missile.
The Russian Defense Ministry said on Wednesday that it had shot down an "aircraft-type" drone over Tatarstan but did not mention Yelabuga.
Ukrainian and Russian channels said more drones were present, but both sides reported different outcomes. The popular Ukrainian Telegram blogger Nikolaevsky Vanyok, who posts regular updates on the war, wrote that five drones hit their target while one was shot down. Operation Z wrote that four drones were destroyed. BI couldn't independently verify the authenticity of either claim.
Ukraine struck Russia's Shahed production facility in Yelabuga in early April 2024 using a drone that resembled the fixed-wing ones filmed this week.
Kyiv used a Cessna-style ultralight sporting aircraft, the Aeroprakt A-22 Foxbat, that was converted into an uncrewed aerial vehicle that can be packed with explosives.
The Iranian-designed Shaheds have been core to Russia's operations in Ukraine, where the Kremlin has deployed thousands of the loitering munitions to harass and attack Ukrainian cities and military targets.
The day before Wednesday's attack at Yelabuga, another major Russian facility, an ammunition depot near Moscow, suffered a massive explosion.
Ukraine did not comment on the cause of the explosive incident. It regularly carries out long-range drone and missile strikes on ammunition depots and military production facilities within Russia. The Kremlin said the blast was the result of a mishandling of explosives.