Ukraine is using a new type of drone capable of destroying Russian gas pipelines—and unlike kamikaze drones, they can be used multiple times.
For several months, Kyiv has been targeting infrastructure, refineries, and ammunition depots on Russian soil with next-generation drones.
On Thursday, Ukraine struck the Druzhba oil pipeline, located near the Belarus-Russia border, and the extent of the damage was visible from space, including through NASA imagery.
According to Forbes, a new type of drone has been deployed—one that first drops a bomb on its target before crashing into it.
This Ukrainian technological breakthrough allows for greater destruction of Russian targets.
Mass production of these drones could give Kyiv a strategic advantage, forcing Moscow to rethink its defence systems.
Relatedly, Ukrainian long-range drones have struck a major oil refinery and gas processing plant in southeastern Russia, a senior Kyiv official said on Thursday, as Ukraine attempts to slow the Russian army’s advances along parts of the front line nearly three years into the war.
The attacks late on Wednesday hit a refinery in the Volgograd region — which is one of Russia’s 10 biggest refining facilities — and a gas plant in the neighbouring Astrakhan region, an official from Ukraine’s security service said on condition of anonymity.
Russia’s military said its air defence units intercepted and destroyed 70 Ukrainian drones over its territory overnight. The Volgograd region and the Astrakhan region on the Caspian Sea coast were targeted, as were sites in the Belgorod, Kursk and Voronezh regions on the border with Ukraine, according to the Russian defence ministry.
Russian authorities acknowledged only a brief fire at the Volgograd refinery during the attack. Moscow’s claims could not be independently verified.
Astrakhan Governor Igor Babushkin visited the region’s gas processing plant on Monday following the attack, according to Russian state media.
Babushkin said operations at the plant — Russia’s main supplier of sulphur for explosives — were shut down ahead of the drone strike, with employees moved to a bomb shelter.
“The shutdown was conducted routinely, with no threat to personnel,” the governor’s press service stated. The fire was extinguished and the damage is now being assessed, according to Russian media reports.
The strike on the oil refinery in Volgograd — which processes 6% of Russia’s oil — was the second time in three days that the facility was attacked, Ukrainian officials said.
Ukrainian defences are creaking under an intensifying Russian drive to occupy more land — especially in Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland — before the possible start of peace negotiations steered by the new US administration of President Donald Trump.
Although it has been heavily dependent on Western military aid since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, Kyiv has been developing its own arms industry, including drones that can cover longer distances with bigger payloads.
