35 km From the Border: Russians Set Up New Drone Launch Site in Bryansk Region

Russian troops have set up a new site for launching kamikaze drones near the village of Asovitsa in the Bryansk region.

This was reported by the telegram channel eRadar.

The site is located about 35 km from the state border of Ukraine and has already been used by the Russians to launch drones in Ukraine on the night of January 4-5, 2026.

The use of this site made it possible to reduce the time for drones to approach the territory of Ukraine to 20 minutes, as well as to fly along the border in the direction of Sumy and Chernihiv.

It is worth noting that information about the construction of additional sites for launching drones became known in October 2025. At that time, monitoring channels identified at least five new locations for UAV launch.

Among the identified points:

• Balaklava training ground and Kacha air base in the temporarily occupied Crimea;
• Shakhty airfield – the Rostov region of the Russian Federation;
• Makiivka training ground – the temporarily occupied Donetsk region;
• Asovitsa landfill – the Bryansk region of the Russian Federation, where construction is ongoing.

This expansion is directly related to an increase in the number of launch destinations to find vulnerabilities in Ukraine’s air defense system.

In addition to the new sites, Russia also uses long-established locations. Thus, today the largest site for launching kamikaze drones is located near the village of Tsymbulovo in the Oryol region.

It is the largest recorded hub with infrastructure for deploying and launching UAVs, including eight stationary launch pads and a long stretch of road for mobile launches.

Also in the Bryansk region, near the village of Navlya, Russian troops use a site with several storage facilities and garages for UAVs. This location is located about 70-75 km from the state border of Ukraine, and in December 2025, Russian troops expanded the drone launch site.

In addition, to launch drones, the Russians have equipped the airfield in Primorsko-Akhtarsk (Krasnodar Krai) and Donetsk Airport, which has already been attacked by the Ukrainian Defense Forces after the start of work on its territory. For example, late in the evening of November 5, there were reports of strikes by the Ukrainian Defense Forces on Russian military targets in temporarily occupied Donetsk.

Subsequently, local residents began posting videos of strong detonations in the area of the former Donetsk International Airport and the village of Spartak.

According to the UK Ministry of Defence, Russia is also building smaller launch sites. This, in turn, leads to fewer drones in each wave of attacks, but reduces the likelihood of timely detection of the immediate moment of launch.