Drone defenses thwart attack on Russian military airport

Air defense forces repelled an attempted drone attack on the Diagilevo military airport and a refinery in Ryazan, located in the European part of Russia, on Saturday morning, according to Ukrainska Pravda citing reports from Russian Telegram channels.

Residents of Ryazan reported on social media that, according to the Telegram channel Shot, an explosion occurred near the Diagilevo airbase around 9 AM Eastern Time (5 AM in Poland).

The Ministry of Defense in Moscow announced that seven drones were shot down in the airspace over the Ryazan region and accused the authorities in Kyiv of attempting the attack. According to Russian authorities, no one was killed or injured.

Ukrainian forces and special services regularly conduct advanced operations using drones on Russian territory. Military, industrial, and technological targets are attacked, including in regions far from Ukraine's borders, such as Tatarstan and the Leningrad region.

In recent months, attacks on Russian refineries have become particularly frequent. Reuters estimated that the processing capabilities of these facilities in Russia, shut down in the first quarter of 2024 as a result of drone raids, amounted to approximately 5.1 million tons of crude oil (an average of 370.5 thousand barrels per day), which was equivalent to about 7 percent of the processing capacity of all refineries in the country.