Overnight on 10 October, a military airfield in the Republic of Adygea, southern Russia, came under attack by strike drones, resulting in explosions and fire, according to local officials and eyewitness reports.
The Khanskaya airfield, located approximately 400 kilometers from the frontlines in Ukraine, was targeted in the assault. Nighttime videos published by the Russian Telegram channel Astra show flashes and capture sounds of explosions and Russian air defense systems in operation at the airfield. A morning video shared by Astra shows black smoke rising over the facility.
The Khanskaya military airfield is situated 3 kilometers east of the Khanskaya stanitsa and 6 kilometers northwest of Maykop, approximately 80 kilometers from Krasnodar City, Krasnodar Krai’s capital.
One video recorded by local residents includes the sound of jet aircraft taking off from the air base after the attack began, likely to avoid being hit by the drones, Militarnyi notes. Russian social media sources suggested these could have been Su-27 fighters and Su-34 bombers.
Following reports of explosions, NASA FIRMS fire monitoring satellite system detected a fire in the area of the Russian airfield.
Based on the NASA data, OSINT researchers Oko Hora and MT Anderson suggest that the attack resulted in a fire at the aircraft fuel tanks and/or an aviation bomb storage facility. In several previous attacks on Russian air bases, the primary targets were aerial bomb warehouses and fuel storages.
NASA FIRMS map shows a fire at the Adygea airbase near the runway, suggesting that the attack targeted fuel and ammunition facilities like in previous attacks on Russia's other airfields. pic.twitter.com/5lGaTjDLNW
— Euromaidan Press (@EuromaidanPress) October 10, 2024
In the morning, the head of Adygea, Murat Kumpilov, confirmed the drone attack and announced the evacuation of residents from the nearby village of Rodnikovy due to the fire in the airfield area. Officials reported no casualties or injuries. Emergency services, rescue workers, and firefighters were on site to extinguish the blaze.
The airfield hosts the 272nd Training Aviation Base of the 2nd category of the Krasnodar Higher Military Aviation School for Pilots. Militarnyi reports that since the beginning of the full-scale war with Ukraine, Russian military forces likely used this air base, including for stationing combat aircraft that could have been involved in strikes on Ukrainian territory.
The Russian Ministry of Defense claimed that 92 Ukrainian aircraft-type drones were intercepted and destroyed overnight across various regions of Russia, without mentioning the attack on Adygea, where the military airfield is on fire.
According to the Russian MoD, “47 drones were intercepted over Krasnodar Krai, 12 over Kursk Oblast, 9 over Rostov Oblast, 4 over Bryansk Oblast, 2 each over Belgorod Oblast and Crimea, 1 over Voronezh Oblast, and 15 over the Sea of Azov.”
In June, Ukrainian drones targeted a Russian oil depot in Adygea.
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- Russia’s guided bombs and air-to-air missiles eliminated at Morozovsk air base, photos show
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- Two Russian oil depots on fire in Russia’s Tambov Oblast and Adygea after drone strikes (video)