A New Ukrainian Drone May Have Blown Up A Major Russian Oil Pipeline

A new drone bomber may have joined Ukraine’s escalating assault on Russia’s oil industry. On Wednesday night or early Thursday morning, drones operated by the Ukrainian 14th Separate Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Regiment struck a pumping station on the Druzhba pipeline along the Russian-Belarusian border in Bryansk Oblast.

The Druzhba pipeline is one of the largest in the world—a critical node in the infrastructure for Russia’s most lucrative industry.

The resulting blaze illuminated the night sky, burning hot enough to register on NASA’s fire-detecting satellites. “Judging by the fire, the strike was precise,” Estonian analyst WarTranslated noted.

The Ukrainians have been attacking Russian oil for two years. But almost all of the strikes have involved explosives-laden drones that, for efficiency’s sake, simply fly themselves into their targets. By contrast, last night’s drones “bombarded the Bryansk Republic with bombs,” according to Nikolaev Vanek, a popular Ukrainian Telegram channel.

Ukraine already operates former civilian sport planes, modified for remote control, that can clutch 220-pound bombs to their bellies. It seems that, until now, the drones simply crashed into their targets instead of releasing their bombs.

That makes sense for the deeper strikes. An Aeroprakt A-22 sport plane laden with explosives might struggle to fly farther than 400 miles on a round trip. But Ukraine has been striking Russian oil infrastructure 800 miles or farther beyond the front line of Russia’s wider war on Ukraine.

Sending the A-22s on one-way missions means they can range 800 miles instead of just 400. No need to drop a bomb when there’s no expectation the attacking drone will return to base.

Last night’s Druzhba raid targeted a pumping station just 25 miles from Ukraine, meaning the endurance of the drone bombers wasn’t a major planning consideration. They could release their bombs and preserve the option of returning to base.

That doesn’t mean they did return to base. Remote landing is one of the more challenging aspects of wartime drone operations. Rather than try and fail to steer the unmanned bombers to a safe nighttime landing, their operators may have chosen to drop the bombs and then guide the drones around on a second pass to crash into the same target they just bombed. A robotic double-tap.

Either way, if Ukraine’s larger drones are capable of dropping underbelly bombs, they may also be capable of there-and-back missions—assuming, of course, their operators can figure out how to land them. They’d be reusable weapons rather than single-use, each capable of blowing up more than one refinery or pumping station before meeting its end.