KYIV (Reuters) – A Ukrainian drone targeted a Russian “Voronezh M” early-warning radar near the city of Orsk in the Orenburg region at a “record” distance, a Kyiv intelligence source said on Monday.
The source told Reuters the attack was conducted by Ukraine’s military spy agency on Sunday and did not say whether it caused any damage. The city of Orsk lies around 1,500 km from the nearest parts of Ukrainian-controlled territory.
There was no immediate comment from Moscow on the matter, though Russia’s Izvestia newspaper and other media outlets reported that a drone had come down in the Orenburg region on Sunday and that no civilian infrastructure had been hit.
Russia, a major nuclear power, has a network of radars that it uses to detect enemy missile launches to determine whether it has come under nuclear attack.
Russia’s state TASS news agency cited the commander of Russia’s aerospace forces as saying in 2017 that three new Voronezh-type advanced early warning radars had entered service, including one in Orenburg region.
Last week, U.S. media outlet RFE/RL cited satellite imagery showing damage at a Voronezh-DM radar installation, another part of the early warning system, near Armavir in southern Krasnodar region after unconfirmed reports of a drone attack.
Reuters has not independently verified the imagery.
With Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine now in its third year, Kyiv has increasingly relied on long-range drones to target Russian military and energy targets, in particular oil refineries in recent months.
Russia has pounded Ukraine with long-range strikes throughout the war and renewed its aerial assault on the energy system, in what it says is retaliation for Kyiv’s strikes on targets in Russia.
A Ukrainian media outlet cited an unnamed source saying the drone had flown 1,800 km (1,118 miles) in Sunday’s attack.
A Ukrainian intelligence source said earlier this month that Kyiv’s longest-range drone attack to date had targeted an oil processing plant in Russia’s Bashkiria region at a range of 1,500 km.
(Reporting by Tom Balmforth; Writing by Anastasiia Malenko; Editing by Alison Williams and Gareth Jones)
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