Satellite images show Russia's new launch sites for exploding attack drones

Business Insider

a day ago

Russia has expanded its drone operations with new launch sites, satellite imagery shows.
Recent images of three bases in Russia show infrastructure to support drone launches and storage.
The developments appear to reflect Russia's increasing investment in its drone operations.
Russia has expanded its one-way attack drone operations, building out launch sites and storage facilities across the country, new satellite images and research show.
Captured in recent weeks by Maxar Technologies and reviewed by Business Insider, the new images reveal apparent launch rails, runways, and hardened shelters, as well as what looks like Shahed-style drones at three key bases used to stage attacks.
Russia has dramatically scaled up the production and launch rates of the Geran-2, a one-way attack drone modeled after the Iranian-designed Shahed-136. These deadly weapons, packed with explosives, have been used nightly in widespread strikes against Ukrainian cities.
The expanded infrastructure seen at the three bases — namely Primorsko-Akhtarsk, Navlya, and Tsimbulova — appears to reflect Russia's growing investment in its highly destructive drone operations.
Brady Africk, an open-source intelligence analyst who has closely tracked and researched these drone base developments, explained to Business Insider that construction of the expanded drone infrastructure at the three bases began last year.
Africk said that the construction at three launch sites at Primorsko-Akhtarsk air base, located in Russia's southeastern Krasnodar Krai region along the Sea of Azov, began in November 2024, in line with efforts to build hardened storage shelters there, too.
Ukraine has repeatedly attacked Primorsko-Akhtarsk. Kyiv's internal security agency, known as the SBU, said at the start of August that it used drones to strike the base because it was used to store and launch Shaheds.
Kyle Glen, an investigator at the UK-based Centre for Information Resilience who monitors Russian drone operations, told Business Insider that Primorsko-Akhtarsk is one of the main launch sites for attacks against Ukraine.
Further north, in Russia's Bryansk region on the border with Ukraine, Russia began construction work at the Navlya nase last July. Africk said that the site, like others, has launch positions and drone storage areas.
In the neighboring Oryol region, Russia began construction at its base at Tsimbulova in September 2024. The site has a long stretch of road for launching drones from moving vehicles; Russian media released footage last month showing Shahed-style drones launching from pickup trucks there.
Africk said the launch sites like the ones at Navlya and Tsimbulova require a smaller footprint than a full-fledged air base, so they are harder to find and target. They also have both the infrastructure for launching drones and storage areas to protect them.
"This makes stifling Russia's launches of waves of drones a difficult matter in terms of timing," he explained. "By the time Ukraine is aware of drone launches, the more pressing issue becomes shooting down ones in flight rather than targeting the launch sites suspected of sending them."
The Iranian-designed Shahed is a one-way attack drone, or loitering munition, that can fly hundreds of miles and linger over an area before diving down toward its target and exploding on impact, with devastating effects.
Russia started using the Iranian-made Shaheds to attack Ukraine in 2022 and then opened up a factory the following year to produce them at home. The Yelabuga plant — over 1,000 miles from the Ukrainian border in the Tatarstan region — now makes an estimated 5,000 drones each month.
The Yelabuga operations have allowed Russia to rapidly scale up production without having to rely on Iran. The larger inventory has been underscored in recent months by massive drone attacks against Ukraine, regularly involving hundreds of Shahed-style drones. Western assessments suggest Moscow may soon be able to launch 2,000 in a single night.
"We've seen Russia's capacity to launch these one-way attack drones increase in tandem with its capacity to produce them domestically," Africk said, stressing that there are believed to be additional launch sites beyond the three known ones.
Britain's defense ministry said last week that Russia launched some 6,200 one-way attack drones at Ukraine in July, a new monthly high that surpassed June's tally by an estimated 600. But the scale of attacks seems to have subsided in August.
Glen, citing Ukrainian Air Force figures, said that as of Tuesday morning, Russia has launched nearly 1,700 drones at Ukraine so far in August — compared to around 4,500 by this point in July and 3,500 in June.
"It's unlikely that it's any kind of capacity issue for Russia," he said, suggesting that Moscow may have been exercising some self-restraint in the lead-up to last week's meeting in Alaska between Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Donald Trump.
Monday night, however, marked the largest attack of the month by a lot. The Ukrainian Air Force reported that Russia launched 270 drones from various directions, including Primorsko-Akhtarsk. Glen said it was almost double the number of the next-biggest attack in August.
The attack, though, was much smaller than some in July — one consisted of at least 700 drones — but it came on the heels of a high-stakes meeting between Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and European leaders at the White House.
"That kind of shows how much of Russia has been almost restraining themselves," Glen said. "Whether that continues will be interesting to see."