New before and after satellite images show a Russian Ilyushin Il-76 aircraft that was obliterated in a drone attack earlier this week on a Russian airfield close to NATO territory.
Open-source intelligence analyst Brady Africk posted the images on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Thursday, saying that they show "one of the Russian Il-76 aircraft destroyed at Pskov Air Base by Ukrainian drones earlier this week."
Ukraine's military intelligence agency (GUR) told Ukrainian media on Wednesday that drones destroyed four Russian Il-76 military transport aircraft stationed at an airfield in the western city of Pskov, near to Russia's border with Estonia, Latvia and Belarus. The airfield is some 400 miles from the Ukrainian border.
GUR representative Andriy Yusov said the drone strike likely damaged two other planes but didn't claim responsibility, in line with Kyiv's policy of distancing itself from attacks on Russian soil.
Africk posted two satellite images of an Il-76 aircraft from global imaging company, Planet Labs, one dated August 16, before the drone attack, and one dated August 31, after the aircraft had been struck. It shows the charred remains of the jet.
Newsweek has contacted Russia's Defense Ministry via email for comment.
One of the Russian Il-76 aircraft destroyed at Pskov Air Base by Ukrainian drones earlier this week. pic.twitter.com/By8tnSE6wd
— Brady Africk (@bradyafr) August 31, 2023
The Institute for the Study of War, a U.S.-based think tank, said in analysis of the conflict in Ukraine on Wednesday that Russian forces may have focused their air defenses on covering the capital, Moscow, and somehow missed the unusually large number of Ukrainian drones that reportedly struck the Pskov airfield.
The think tank said Russian sources, including the Russian Ministry of Defense, claimed that Russian air defenses and electronic warfare systems had downed Ukrainian drones over Oryol, Tula, Voronezh, Ryazan, Kaluga, Bryansk, and Moscow regions.
"The Ukrainian drones that Russian air defenses downed over the six other oblasts were likely en route to Moscow or Pskov Oblast and likely were not part of a Ukrainian effort to strike targets in the other oblasts," it said.
There have been a growing number of strikes on Russia soil in recent months, amid a counteroffensive by Ukraine to reclaim its territory. Attacks have largely targeted warehouses, industrial sites and military sites.
In August, Verstka, a news organization founded shortly after the war in Ukraine began, discovered that the number of explosions in Russia had quadrupled in 2022, the year President Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion.
It cited figures from the Ministry of Emergency Situations of the Russian Federation in its claim that a total of 83 explosions were recorded as having occurred in Russia in 2022—more than four times the number recorded in 2021 (20 explosions).
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