Russia Builds New Shahed Drone Testing Site Near Kazakhstan Border

Russia has built a new test site for Shahed/Geran-2 kamikaze drones in the Orenburg region, near the Kazakhstan border.

OSINT analyst kim høvik published satellite images on his X account.

The images reveal that construction of the site has been ongoing since at least 2022 in the Tochka district, near the village of Klyuchevoye and the R224 highway, about 1000 km from the Ukrainian border.

The test site includes storage buildings for the drones and launch platforms.

Additionally, in March 2025, a Russian Geran-2 kamikaze drone with the tail number ‘Ы18358’ crashed in Kazakhstan.

According to reports, the drone was discovered in the Taskalinsky district of the West Kazakhstan region, which borders Russia’s Saratov region.

The drone landed in a field without visible damage and without the detonation of its warhead, which may indicate that the fuel was exhausted, leading to an uncontrolled glide to the ground.