Ukraine guides unmanned aircraft laden with explosives into Russian drone factory

UKRAINE flew what is thought to be a light aircraft packed with explosives into a drone factory in the “deepest strike inside Russian territory” since the start of the war.

The “drone aircraft” strike on Russia’s central Tatarstan region – hundreds of miles from the countries’ shared border – hit a building believed to contain dormitories for workers near a factory assembling Iranian Shahed explosive drones in Yelabuga. It wounded 13 people, including two students and two minors, according to local health officials.

Another attack targeted an oil refinery in Nizhnekamsk.

The sites are more than 800 miles from the border.

Videos on social media showed an aircraft-style drone flying into a two-storey building at a business park outside the city before exploding, sending a fireball into the air.

Kyiv has regularly hit Russian territory since the start of Moscow’s invasion, but generally not far from the border.

The cheap Shahed drones, initially imported from Iran, have been pivotal to Russian attacks on Ukrainian energy facilities.

On Monday, Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s digital minister, who is involved in the country’s drone programme, said the country had recently developed its own drones that can fly more than 1,000km (620 miles).

“Most of the drones that attacked Russian oil refineries have a range of 700km to 1,000km, but now there are models that can fly more than 1,000km,” he said.

The Yelabuga drone appears to have travelled even deeper into Russian territory. According to Ukrainian sources, it was a “new model”.

Observers pointed out that it resembled an Aeroprakt A-22, a Ukrainian two-seater, high-wing ultralight aircraft.

Sam Guichelaar, a pilot, flight instructor and flight operations manager, said the aircraft had perhaps taken off from inside Russia. “It is much easier to convert an existing aircraft into a drone than to smuggle an entire massive drone into Russia.

He added: “For the record, the A-22 cruises at around 110 knots. That means it would have been flying for at least six hours (shortest straight line route) over Russian territory, at a slow speed, without being noticed or shot down.

“I think it’s likelier it was launched closer to the target.”

Dmitry Peskov , the Kremlin spokesman said: “The Kyiv regime continues its terrorist activity. Our military is working to minimise this threat and then completely eliminate it.”

The region’s health ministry said 13 people were injured “including students and minors” in the strike on Yelabuga.

It said eight were in hospital in a “mild to moderate condition” and that there was “no threat to their lives”. In the Russian city of Nizhnekamsk across the Kama river from Yelabuga, the RIA Novosti state news agency said a drone hit the Taneco oil refinery, owned by Tatneft, the Russian oil giant.

A unit that processes about 155,000 barrels of crude a day was struck,

‘It would have been flying for at least six hours at a slow speed, without being noticed’

though an industry source said the damage was not significant.

Russian officials said its jamming devices locked onto a Ukrainian drone near the refinery, which has an annual production capacity of more than 17 million tons (340,000 barrels) a day).