By Mark Episkopos, Managing Editor, Center for Military Modernization
At least four Russian Il-76 military aircraft were damaged on Tuesday in what appears to be the largest Ukrainian attack on Russian territory since the war began in February 2022.
The attack took place in an airfield located in Russia’s northwestern Pskov region. Russian authorities said yesterday that four Il-76 aircraft suffered damage “as a result of a drone attack.” There has not been an updated count of affected aircraft today, nor has the extent of the damage been specified. Andriy Yusov, a spokesman for Ukraine’s GUR military agency, told Reuters that the four planes were destroyed. “Yes, four IL-76 transport planes were destroyed in Pskov at an airfield, they are beyond repair. Also, several other of those (aircraft) are damaged, but the information is being checked,” Yusov said. Video footage taken by locals depicted swirls of billowing smoke over the Pskov airfield; other clips appeared to show several Il-76’s engulfed in flames.
Tuesday’s events have sparked a wave of speculation among Russian political commentators and military bloggers that the drones used to attack the Pskov airfield may have been deployed from neighboring Estonia, a NATO member state. The drones’ unexpected axis of advance, as per Russian claims, explains why they were not detected and targeted by Russian air defenses. According to alleged witness accounts, Pskov locals did not hear the sounds of air defenses working during the drone strike.
There has been no evidence to support claims of Estonian involvement, nor has this narrative been backed by the Kremlin or any Russian officials. “I have no doubt that our military experts are working on these issues and are finding out the routes and how it was done to take appropriate measures to prevent such situations in the future,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday.
As Russian observers correctly noted, it is highly unlikely that a swarm of several dozen drones took off in Ukraine and flew roughly 600km over Belarus– a Russian ally– without anyone noticing. But these commentators have dismissed, or at least downplayed, the very real possibility that the Pskov airfield attack was carried out by a Ukrainian deep reconnaissance group (DRG) group working within Russia. This would be a highly ambitious DRG operation, but there is nothing to suggest it is beyond Ukrainian capabilities. Previous Ukrainian and Ukrainian-sponsored cross-border raids, particularly the May 2023 Belgorod incursions, have demonstrated the porousness of Russia’s western borders. Hundreds of fighters successfully penetrated Russian territory, bringing light and reportedly even heavy armor with them. In the absence of concrete evidence pointing to foreign involvement, the DRG theory is just as plausible– if not more so, given the established precedent– as unverified claims that the drones came from Estonia.
Wherever the drones came from, the Pskov attack was part of a larger series of Ukrainian strikes against targets in Russia’s southern regions and the city of Sevastopol in Russian-occupied Crimea. These other attacks seem almost as diversions intended to distract the Russians from the Pskov strike, given its abnormally large scale and intensity.
Ukraine’s summer counteroffensive has been accompanied by frequent and often massive drone strikes against Russian and Russian-controlled territory, part of Kyiv’s strategy to whittle away at Russian infrastructure even as its forces apply pressure at multiple points on Russia’s defensive lines in the southern Zaporizhzhia region.
The Pskov attack, if it is followed by similarly successful large-scale strikes against valuable targets in Russian territory, may be an indication that Ukrainian forces have developed effective countermeasures against Russian air defenses in certain scenarios. Crimea, one of the most common targets of Ukrainian drone strikes, is heavily saturated with echeloned Russian air defense systems and other countermeasures precisely because the Russians expect Ukrainian strikes in that area. Russian military assets and infrastructure in remote bases hundreds of kilometers away from the front lines are much harder to reach, but, as the Pskov attack shows, Ukraine can effectively target them by using the element of surprise and Russia’s vast geography to its advantage.
Mark Episkopos is the new Managing Editor of the Center for Military Modernization. Episkopos is a journalist, researcher, and analyst writing on national security and international relations issues. He is also a Ph.D. candidate in history at American University.
