A Soviet-era military airfield in the middle of Russian-occupied Crimea has been turned into a hub for launching attack drones, according to new satellite images obtained by RFE/RL. The site, called Hvardiyske in Ukrainian and Gvardeiskoye in Russian, is now used almost daily for strikes, Ukraine's military says.
Ukrainian authorities first identified Hvardiyske as a drone launch site in March 2025. An image of the base taken on October 11 shows no visible military aircraft. It does show extensive new infrastructure, which observers link to drone operations.
The change has prompted questions about why Kyiv has been unable to put the site out of action with its own drones and missiles. Ukraine has often struck Russian drone storage and launch facilities in Crimea, including at remote Cape Chauda in the southeast and near Balaklava, where a strike reportedly took the site out of service. Hvardiyske has also been hit by Ukrainian drones, but the damage has been minimal.
A Crimean local and former Ukrainian military officer, who spoke to RFE/RL's Crimean Service on condition of anonymity, offered possible explanations. He said the main factor is that drone activity is dispersed across the airfield. "The launch site is in one location, the maintenance area in another, and the storage facilities are in a third," he said.
He described the infrastructure as relatively simple and easy to restore, noting that some of it sits in the open. The October 11 image shows scores of unidentified objects spaced several meters apart on open grassland in the southwestern corner of the base.
The former officer also pointed to a Soviet-built underground facility for storing aircraft munitions, located about 15 kilometers from the base. He suggested it is a likely place for mass storage of attack drones launched from the airfield. "The Shaheds may well be hiding there," he said, adding that such a fortified space is probably impossible to penetrate, even with Ukrainian missiles.
Geography is another obstacle. Hvardiyske lies in the center of Crimea, a peninsula heavily defended by air defense systems. Coastal launch sites can be approached from over the sea, but Ukrainian drones heading for Hvardiyske "have to fly about 100 kilometers over land to strike this facility, where the likelihood of being shot down is higher," the source said.
The airfield served as a naval aviation base during the Soviet era and later under Ukraine. After Russia annexed Crimea, the Russian Aerospace Forces took it over and stationed Su-24M bombers and Su-25SM ground-attack jets there, until it was converted into a drone port.
