It’s the deepest Ukrainian drone strike of the war, so far

A month after Ukraine began bombarding targets inside Russia with explosives-laden sports planes modified for remote flight, one of the do-it-yourself drones has struck an oil refinery in the city of Salavat, more than 800 miles from the front line of Russia’s wider war on Ukraine.

It is, by far, Ukraine’s longest-range raid—and an escalation of Ukraine’s deep-strike campaign targeting Russian refineries, factories and strategic military sites.

And it’s at least the fourth attempted deep strike involving Ukraine’s sport-plane drones. Videos shot by people on the ground in Salavat clearly depict the wide straight wings, fixed wheels and propeller that are typical of an inexpensive sport plane, the kind a middle-class pilot can build at home from a kit costing as little as $90,000.

    • Tryptaminev@lemm.ee
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      6 months ago

      Empty weight 260 kg. So a normal Pilot 70-80 kg adds 25-30% weight on top. Plus the weight for seat, steering wheels etc. So with a small payload they probably safe quite some weight.

      • soEZ@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Plis adding extra fuel tanks in spota for cargo/pilot etc. prob helps and striping it off anything unnecessary like seats breaks etc…

      • Rickety Thudds@lemmy.ca
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        6 months ago

        We aren’t talking about the weight of the payload though. Don’t you need a fairly hefty bomb to meaningfully damage a refinery?

        If the answer is no, I would love to see this strategy implemented in a longer ranged plane. Russia’s main tank production factory is about 2000 miles from the nominal Ukrainian border.