Ukraine’s drone campaign has now reached the far north of Russia, where Moscow runs its main military spaceport.
At least two Ukrainian UAVs arrived near Plesetsk Cosmodrome in the Arkhangelsk region on Aug. 23, according to the Russian monitoring channel Locator Russia. The airfield beside the site went under the temporary “Carpet Plan” flight restrictions over a possible threat, and residents filmed the drones overhead. Video posted by the Supernova+ Telegram channel shows smoke in the area, though the intended targets and the damage are still unconfirmed.
Plesetsk handles Russia’s military satellite launches and its intercontinental ballistic missile tests. This year it has already seen several Soyuz-2 and Angara flights carrying defense payloads and batches of Rassvet communications craft, with another military launch planned for August. Moscow wants 292 Rassvet satellites on orbit by the end of 2027 as its Starlink equivalent.
The appearance of drones in the region follows an April warning from Roscosmos chief Dmitry Bakanov that attackers had tried to hit Plesetsk during satellite launches. Russia has separately closed maritime areas off the Arkhangelsk coast for Aug. 26-27, a window it says will hold missile launches.
For Kyiv, pressure on Plesetsk threatens two pillars of Russian space power: satellite replenishment for the war effort and the test program behind its missile force.
