Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) confirmed on 9 August that its long-range drones struck a Shahed storage facility in Russia’s Tatarstan republic, destroying ready-to-use attack drones and foreign drone components 1,300 kilometers from the Ukrainian border. 

The strike targets Russia’s expanding drone production network that now manufactures over 5,000 Shaheds monthly and launches nightly swarms of 100+ drones to build reserves before unleashing massive coordinated attacks of 500+ drones against Ukrainian cities. 

Russia’s Republic of Tatarstan is home to the main production facilities for Shahed drones used by Russia. The largest factory is located near the city of Yelabuga, specifically within the Alabuga Special Economic Zone.

According to Dnipro OSINT, the strike was carried out using a Liutyi drone. This drone has carried out accurate strikes on Russian oil refineries as far as 800km into Russian territory. Ukrainian sources report that the Liutyi accounts for up to 80% of precision hits on Russian oil refineries.

Ukraine’s systematic campaign against Russian drone network

“The Security Service continues its consistent work on demilitarizing Russian military facilities deep in the enemy’s rear. Storage warehouses for ‘Shaheds’, which the enemy uses to terrorize Ukraine every night, are one of the legitimate military targets,” the SBU stated.

The agency adds that each such successful special operation reduces Russia’s ability to wage a war of aggression against Ukraine. 

This strike continues Ukraine’s systematic targeting of Russia’s drone production network throughout 2025, striking warhead labs, antenna plants, and control system factories deep inside the country. 

In recent months, Russia has adopted a new strategy of launching 100+ Shahed drones per night for one or two nights while producing even more daily to build up reserves. 

Once stockpiles are sufficient, they unleash massive waves of over 500 drones in a single night, combining Shaheds with decoy Gerber drones designed to overwhelm air defenses and target multiple cities simultaneously.

The August 9 operation follows previous Ukrainian strikes on Shahed infrastructure, including January strikes that destroyed over 200 Shahed drones in storage facilities in Russia’s Oryol Oblast and attacks on the Yelabuga industrial zone, which houses Russia’s largest known Shahed production facility.

Russia has launched thousands of Iranian-designed Shahed drones against Ukraine since fall 2022. Western media reports each Shahed-136 drone costs as low as $20,000, making them cost-effective weapons for mass attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure and cities.

Ukraine’s deep strikes are becoming more destructive. The main reason, it seems, is the combination of a largely German-funded attack drone—and the powerful warhead, or warheads, it can carry.

As recently as last year, the Ukrainian military and its supporting agencies—in particular, the state security service, or SBU—struggled to make an impact with long-range drones. “More than half of the recorded strikes between September and February had limited impact,” Ukrainian analysis group Frontelligence Insight concluded in a March study.

But that’s changing as more and better drones with bigger and better-designed warheads strike more frequently many hundreds of kilometers inside Russia.

Tatarigami, Frontelligence Insight’s founder, recently sensed the change. “Based on an early look at several dozen hits over the past two weeks, both the success rate and damage from Ukrainian long-range drones have gone up compared to late 2024 [to] early 2025,” he wrote. “I haven’t put together the data set yet, but even at a glance, the results already look different.”

In recent weeks, Ukrainian drones have hit Russian airfields—destroying several warplanes and helicopters—while also blowing up key components of the refinery in Novokuibyshevsk, which accounts for around 3% of annual refining in Russia.

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One Ukrainian drone keeps smashing Russia’s top war factories—so Germany’s paying for 500 more

Thanks in large part to German largess, Ukrainian firm Ukroboronprom is building hundreds more of its best An-196 Liutyi attack drones than it had planned earlier this year.

According to German newspaper Die Welt, the government of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is providing around $100 million to pay for 500 of the propeller-driven, satellite-guided Liutyi drones. A Liutyi carries an approximately 50-kg warhead farther than 800 km. The $200,000 drone can follow a complex flight path and change altitude in order to avoid Russian air-defenses. 

Early Liutyi models may have had comparatively simple and light warheads. “One contributing factor” in the limited effectiveness of drone strikes in 2024 and early 2025, Frontelligence Insight concluded, “is the relatively small warhead size of certain Ukrainian drones, such as the Liutyi.”

For comparison, a Russian Shahed drone carries a 90-kg warhead.

It’s possible Ukroboronprom has been improving and enlarging the warhead on the An-196. Roy, a Canadian drone expert, recently observed a 60-kg OFB-60 warhead apparently recovered from the wreck of a crashed Liutyi. “The 60-kg high-explosive shaped-charge munition has a concave metal face for forming an … explosively formed projectile” that can punch through metal, Roy noted.

Warhead options

It’s not clear that all Liutyi drones have the 60-kg shaped-charge warhead. The drones are often described as carrying just 50 kg of explosives. It’s actually possible the drones can carry even bigger payloads. Missile expert Fabian Hoffman even claimed some An-196s are now packing 75-kg warheads.

A bigger warhead comes at a cost, however. “Given the long distances these [Ukrainian] drones must travel, increasing their warhead size would require adjustments to weight, fuel capacity and overall design,” Frontelligence assessed. In short, there’s a direct tradeoff. A bigger warhead means more destruction but a shorter range.

The reported recent development of a Liutyi model capable of traveling 2,000 km may imply some of the drones are carrying lighter warheads rather than heavier ones—trading away explosive payload in order to add fuel capacity.

So when Tatarigami senses Ukrainian drone strikes are becoming more destructive, there may be caveats. The most destructive raids might be the one striking closest to the Ukrainian border. Yes, a few An-196s or other drone types may range 2,000 km into Russia. But the ones dealing the real damage—potentially with the most powerful shaped-charge warheads—are probably hitting targets no more than 800 km from Ukraine.

Not coincidentally, SBU drones pummeled Saky air base in Russian-occupied Crimea on 3 August, reportedly destroying one Sukhoi Su-30 fighter jet and damaging another—and also damaging three Sukhoi Su-24 bombers. Saky is fewer than 300 km from the front line in southern Ukraine.

That’s well within range of a harder-hitting Liutyi drone.

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Putin built concrete castles for his bombers—Ukraine’s drones burned them down

In the span of two weeks starting in early July, the German government signaled separate investments in Ukraine’s best attack drone—the Ukroboronprom An-196 Liutyi—as well as its first mass-producible cruise missile, apparently the Bars.

With substantial stocks of the new drones and missiles, Ukrainian forces should be capable of striking Russian targets as far away as 800 km. The drones would fly slower and may carry lighter, 50kg warheads. The missiles should fly faster and hit harder with heavier warheads weighing perhaps twice as much.

There’s some evidence the German spend is already making a difference. The An-196 and Bars “are being deployed on the front line with increasing frequency,” the pro-Ukraine Conflict Intelligence Team noted. On July 26, drones slammed into the Signal plant in Stavropol, in southwestern Russia 500 km from the front line in Ukraine. The plant manufactures radar and electronic warfare systems.

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A photo that circulated on Russian social media the same day may depict, for the first time in public, wreckage of one of the Bars missiles. 

In funding Ukraine’s expanding deep-strike complex, Germany is helping Ukraine do to Russia what Russia has been doing to Ukraine throughout its 42-month wider war on the country: disrupt Russian command, logistics and production where the Russians are most vulnerable—at home.

Major Gen. Christian Freuding, the head of the German defense ministry’s Situation Center Ukraine, announced the missile deal in early July. The weapons, apparently Bars, would begin arriving in Ukraine within weeks—meaning now.

Drones galore

Just days prior, Welt broke the news that Germany would also finance as many as 500 of the An-196 drones. The propeller-driven, satellite-guided Liutyi carries a 50-kg warhead farther than 800 kg. The $200,000 drone can follow a complex flight path and change altitude in order to dodge Russian defenses.

The An-196 already had German connections. The 3.5-m drone sports a German-made Hirth F-23 aviation engine producing 50 horsepower.

The Liutyis have been responsible for some of the most damaging strikes on targets deep inside Russia. Before Ukraine largely paused strikes on Russian oil facilities this spring, possibly bowing to pressure from the United States, the An-196s accounted for up to 80% of hits on refineries.

The turbojet Bars ranges around as far as the propeller-driven Liutyi does, but should hit harder thanks to a bigger warhead. And it should be more survivable owing to its likely higher speed. An An-196 motors along at slower than 320 km/hr; most cruise missiles travel twice as fast. 

The Bars is reportedly capable of ground and aerial launch. The Ukrainian air force has modified its Sukhoi Su-24 bombers to carry British-made Storm Shadow and French-made SCALP cruise missiles that are 5 m long and weigh nearly 1,400 kg. The Bars should be smaller and lighter, and may also be compatible with the Su-24s.

We don’t know how much a Bars costs, but it’s almost certainly less than the millions of dollars a Western-made cruise missile can cost. “Its main advantage is reportedly its potential for mass production within Ukraine,” CIT explained.

“The extent to which the new Bars missile will affect the front line will depend entirely on how many are made available to the Ukrainian military,” CIT wrote. Considering that Russia produces 600 or so of its best Kh-101 cruise missiles every year, the hundreds of Bars the Germans may be financing should help the Ukrainians chip away at the Russians’ missile advantage.

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