In a sharp escalation of its drone campaign targeting strategic industries deep inside Russia, Ukraine seems to have fitted Cessna-style light planes with remote controls, packed them with explosives and flown at least one of them more than 600 miles to strike a Russian factory in Yelabuga, 550 miles east of Moscow.
Ironically, the Russian factory produces—you guessed it—drones.
Russians on the ground recorded the shocking scene as the light plane dove onto the sprawling Alabuga Special Economic Zone industrial campus, where workers assemble Iranian-designed Shahed drones that, just like Ukraine’s DIY Cessna-style drone, can range as far 600 miles with an explosive payload.
Air traffic, at least in north America so I’m assuming it’s similar in Russia, is assigned air space that is permissible to fly in. Any aircraft entering even slightly restricted air space where it doesn’t have clearance will be met with communication attempts from a nearby radio controller, and in this case since the plane was unmanned I would guess it was probably unresponsive which should have raised some eyebrows.
Russian air traffic control is either inept or they don’t have the resources to spare a military escort for air space violations. It probably just became a whole lot more dangerous to be a hobby pilot.
Or both.