On April 2, Ukrainian drones flew to the Russian Republic of Tatarstan for the first time and attacked targets in the city of Nizhnekamsk and the Alabuga special economic zone in the city of Yelabuga. One long-range drone hit the primary oil refining unit of the TANECO plant in Nizhnekamsk, after which a fire broke out there.
And the second UAV struck a dormitory where students of the Alabuga Polytech educational center were assembling Shahed drones. A complex of eight hostels was damaged. What was the blow, who organized it, and whether the war strategy could change in connection with this.
Who and what?
The strike on targets in Tatarstan was the farthest for drones since the beginning of a full-scale war. If the drones arrived from Ukraine, now the affected area of objects in the Russian Federation has increased to more than 1,200 kilometers. This is exactly the distance from the Ukrainian border to Nizhnekamsk.
Later, information appeared that the attack on objects in Tatarstan was the result of a joint special operation of Ukrainian intelligence and the Security Service of Ukraine. However, the intelligence services themselves did not officially comment on this.
According to the Ukrainian military portal Defense Express, in this case we are talking about drones that are more in line with the size of small aircraft, such as the Cessna 172, which has a flight range of under 1,300 km and is capable of carrying 376 kg of weight. In a hypothetical UAV version, both parameters are larger, since some unnecessary equipment can be removed. That is, it is possible to equip such a drone with a much more powerful warhead, which will lead to even greater consequences as a result of defeat.
Leaky air defense
“Russia cannot fully provide its territory with an effective layered air defense system,” military expert Alexander Kovalenko tells Apostrophe. “They have some objects, of course, covered, but in general, as I have said more than once, their air defense is leaky.” .
“Russia’s air defense systems are not enough because “Pantsiri”, “Tor”, together with “Buks”, complexes such as S300, S400 - they either bombard Kharkov with missiles, or Belgorod is shelled, or directly at the front,” confirmed Apostrophe TV on air ”arms expert Oleg Katkov.
And, by the way, if we take into account that Tatarstan was attacked by Cessna-type aircraft, then we can recall an incident from history: on May 28, 1987, on the day of the USSR Border Troops, the German amateur pilot Matthias Rust flew from Hamburg via Reykjavik on the same plane and Helsinki to Moscow, landing on the Bolshoi Moskvoretsky Bridge, flying unhindered for more than a thousand kilometers. Soviet air defense did not work then either.
According to Alexander Kovalenko, the evolution of our UAVs is now taking place.
What's next?
Experts agree that now a huge number of objects in Russia that may be interesting for destruction are defenseless.
“The radius will increase, the industry component of these facilities will increase. In addition to oil refineries, there are also gas condensate plants and enterprises related to gas export. “We also don’t forget about the large number of military-industrial complex objects,” Kovalenko lists, “there may be interesting airfields in Russia in the affected area, and although they are protected by air defense systems, as events show, they can be bypassed.”
But, according to experts, such UAVs will not be able to significantly influence the war strategy.
“These UAV attacks cannot change the strategy. Our UAV strikes are not on such a destructive scale as, for example, the destruction of the Dnieper Hydroelectric Station by the Russians. In this regard, “Storm Shadow” is more effective. But, psychologically, these blows are painful for Russians. They have to repair these objects, spend additional funds on restoration and lose money. This is also important,” military expert Mikhail Zhirokhov noted in a comment to Apostrophe.
“The war strategy will not change, since attacks on the rear targets of the Russian Federation are one of the elements of this strategy,” says Alexander Kovalenko.
“We need to scale and intensify the strikes of our UAVs, then there will be an effect,” notes Zhirokhov.
And political strategist Alexey Golobutsky sees a political component in this.
“Until America has decided on its foreign policy obligations and their format, Ukraine will continue to single-handedly destroy the enemy’s military economy. In the near future, given the emergence of even longer-range drones, the list of legitimate targets for special operations of the SBU and GUR will expand,” Alexey Golobutsky noted in a comment to Apostrophe.
