Ukraine says it struck the Staraya Russa plant that repairs A-50 aircraft and a drone base at Donetsk airport

Two targets linked to Russian air power, one deep inside Russia and the other in occupied territory, were struck by Ukraine, it announced on Tuesday, November 10. The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces gave details of a strike on a plant in the Novgorod region where A-50 airborne early-warning aircraft are serviced, while the 412th Nemesis brigade of the Unmanned Systems Forces showed in a video an attack on a drone base at Donetsk airport. These claims have not been independently verified.

The 123rd plant at Staraya Russa

The target in Russia was the 123rd aircraft repair plant at Staraya Russa. The facility has its own runway, so large aircraft can land inside the premises, and the transport aircraft of the Russian Air Force and the A-50s are repaired, modernised and serviced there. The General Staff announcement says that explosions were heard at the plant overnight into Tuesday and a fire followed, with the extent of damage still being established.

Kyiv is returning to a familiar target. In March 2026, according to the Ukrainian staff, an A-50 that was at the plant for maintenance, and probably awaiting modernisation, was hit. The “flying radars”, as the Ukrainians call them, detect targets and track aircraft and cruise missiles at distances of hundreds of kilometres, coordinating Russian air raids. Each aircraft costs around $350 million and, by Ukrainian estimates, Moscow now has very few in operational condition, after Ukraine also shot down an A-50 in early 2024. The General Staff assesses that such strikes keep transport and special-mission aircraft on the ground for longer.

The drone base at Donetsk airport

At Donetsk, the Nemesis brigade published footage of a strike on what it calls the Russian side’s “drone port”, inside the airport of the occupied city, about 40 kilometres from Ukrainian-held ground. The attack was carried out with Middle Strike assets, meaning medium-range strikes that Ukraine has been launching in recent months at distances of 30 to 180 kilometres from the front line.

The brigade explained the logic of the operation: “Enemy drones over Ukrainian cities must become fewer. That is why we do not only intercept those that have already taken off, but also destroy the infrastructure from which they are launched.” The same unit had announced earlier that the interception crews of its Darknode battalion destroyed 276 targets in October, among them Shahed, Gerbera, Lancet and jet-powered targets.

The two strikes were announced in a week of constant Russian night attacks, such as the one with an Iskander-M and 162 drones the night before the Abu Dhabi talks.