Map Shows Half of Russia, Iran in Range of Ukraine's New Battle Drones

Ukraine's unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) can hit targets at distances deep inside European Russia, the head of the country's military intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, has said, as a map shows the range of Ukrainian drone capabilities.

Kyiv continues to call for the West to lift restrictions on long-range weapons such as Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) and U.K.-provided Storm Shadow cruise missiles.

But Budanov has touted its capabilities using much smaller and cheaper combat and reconnaissance drones as well as naval UAVs which have been used to attack Russia's Black Sea Fleet.

Russian authorities accused Kyiv of conducting a widespread drone attack on nine Russian regions overnight Monday which set residential buildings alight and caused disruption to flights at Moscow's Vnukovo, Domodedovo and Sheremetyevo airports.

After Tuesday's drone attack in Russia, Ukraine's defense ministry told Newsweek, "We do not comment on what is happening on the territory of Russia."

Three days earlier, Budanov had said in a Facebook post that personnel from Ukrainian intelligence were working with specialists to develop drones which can hit targets up to 1,800 km away (1,200 miles) away and suggested that Kyiv's cyber experts had located Russia's weak spots would be later targeted.

A map produced by Newsweek shows the radius of this drone range that Ukraine says it possesses which from Kyiv, reaches the Ural Mountains the delineate the European and Asian parts of Russia.

The range takes in Russian cities far from Moscow, such as Chelyabinsk, Kazan and Yekaterinburg. On July 18, a fire broke out near a military factory in Yekaterinburg and while in January, Ukrainian intelligence reported that a Sukhoi Su-34 aircraft had been destroyed at the "Shagol" airfield in Chelyabinsk.

The radius also includes northern Kazakhstan, Iran and parts of the Middle East, although there is no suggestion Kyiv would target these areas.

"The entire infrastructure of Russia, working for the war, has suffered and will suffer losses," Budanov said in the post on Saturday, which added that Russian "military airfields, which are a source of constant threat to peaceful Ukrainian cities, shudder from air attacks."

He did not specify which drones had been used or where but his comments were public recognition of Ukraine's roles in strikes on military airfields within Russia which have stepped up in recent months, often without Kyiv directly admitting responsibility.

In July, drones attacked the military airfield in Dyagilevo, near the city of Ryazan, where Russia's strategic bomber force is trained and Tupolev Tu-95MS, Tu-22M3, Tu-134UBL aircraft and an Ilyushin Il-78 tanker are located.

The same month, Ukraine reportedly launched drones on the Millerovo air base in the southern Rostov region.

For Russia's air defenses, "there's just an immense amount of area to cover in Russia, territories west, south and northwest of Moscow," Ryan Gury, CEO and co-founder of drone technology company PDW, told Newsweek. "The Russian country is just larger and their targets are also much larger and all this is much more difficult to cover."

Gury said that Kyiv's targets are "thousands of kilometers away from Ukraine and thousands of kilometers apart" and that "on the other side, Ukrainians have set up radars and landed crews and they have a huge unified system."

"Compared to to Russia, it can be said that the reckoning has come for attack UAVs," he added. "They (Ukraine) have identified the goals, organized all the processes and have been at this much longer, from the start of the war."

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