Ukraine's Security Service says its long-range drones struck two of Russia's most capable combat aircraft on the ground at a military airfield some 500 kilometres from Ukrainian-controlled territory, in the latest deep strike against the air power Moscow uses to bomb Ukrainian cities and frontline positions.
The SBU said on 4 October that drones operated by its Alpha Special Operations Center hit a Su-35 multirole fighter and a Su-34 fighter-bomber at the Khanskaya military airfield in Russia's Republic of Adygea, near Maykop, overnight on 4 October. The agency said its drones also struck an ammunition depot on the airfield. Satellite fire-detection data pointed to a fire at the facility after the attack, with NASA's FIRMS system registering thermal anomalies in the area, and Ukrainian commentator Denys Davydov presented satellite imagery in his 5 October update as confirmation that two jets parked close together on a taxiway had been hit despite new hangars being built at the base.
Kyiv has not released independently verifiable battle-damage imagery, and Moscow had not publicly commented on the claim at the time of reporting. The aircraft losses should therefore be treated as Ukrainian claims, not independently confirmed kills.
Two aircraft Russia can ill afford to lose
The Su-35 is one of Russia's most advanced operational fighters, a twin-engine air-superiority aircraft that also flies escort and strike missions. The SBU put its export value at roughly $100 million. The Su-34, valued by the agency at about $50 million, is the workhorse fighter-bomber of Russian tactical aviation.
Both types matter for the same reason: they carry the guided aerial bombs that Russian aviation drops daily on Ukrainian trenches, towns and cities. Every airframe destroyed on the ground is one that cannot launch those glide bombs the next morning, and Russia's capacity to replace modern combat aircraft is limited by sanctions, production bottlenecks and competing demands across a vast air force.
Khanskaya is not an improvised frontline strip. It is an established military airfield that has previously hosted Su-34 and Su-35 aircraft and supports Russia's military pilot training system. It has also been targeted by Ukrainian long-range strikes before, which underlines a persistent Russian failure: even repeatedly struck bases, hundreds of kilometres from the front, remain exposed to Ukrainian drones.
A 500-kilometre problem for Russian air defence
The reported distance is the strategically important figure. A strike at roughly 500 kilometres requires a drone that can navigate deep into defended airspace, evade layered air defences, and still arrive with enough accuracy to hit parked aircraft and a munitions store.
Ukraine has spent three years building exactly that capability, moving from improvised long-range drones to serially produced systems flown by specialist units such as the SBU's Alpha center. The pattern is now familiar: refineries, ammunition depots, command posts and airfields across western and southern Russia are struck in sequence, forcing Moscow to disperse aircraft, harden shelters and pull scarce air-defence systems away from the front to protect the rear.
Each dispersal carries a cost. Aircraft based farther from Ukraine fly longer sorties, burn more fuel and generate fewer daily attack missions. Air defences redeployed to cover rear bases leave gaps elsewhere. And a fire visible from space at a fighter and training base is a public reminder that distance from the front no longer guarantees safety.
What the strike does and does not prove
Two aircraft, even modern ones, do not decide a war of this scale, and Ukrainian claims from deep-strike operations have sometimes exceeded what later imagery confirmed. The honest assessment is narrower and still significant: Kyiv can repeatedly reach one of Russia's established fighter bases, at operational depth, with drones cheap relative to the targets they threaten.
That asymmetry is the point. A drone that costs a small fraction of a Su-35 does not need to succeed every time; it needs to succeed often enough that Russia must spend heavily on base defence, dispersal and repairs while still losing hard-to-replace airframes. If the Khanskaya claim is borne out even in part, it adds two more modern jets to a Russian loss ledger that sanctions make slow and expensive to refill.
For Ukraine, the message to its partners is equally deliberate. Deep-strike drone units deliver measurable effects against the aircraft bombing Ukrainian cities, using Ukrainian-built systems rather than scarce Western missiles. Expect Kyiv to keep pressing that campaign, and expect Moscow, which has still not explained the fire at Khanskaya, to keep paying for air defences it cannot position everywhere at once.
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