A section of the Hvardiyske airfield showing militry jets in December 2021 (left), and structures linked to drone launches on October 11, 2026 (right).
Photo: Google Earth, Planet Labs (©)
A military airfield in Crimea has been transformed into a hub for drone launches, new satellite images sourced by RFE/RL show.
Hvardiyske airfield, in the center of the Russian-occupied Ukrainian peninsula, was first identified as a launch site for attack drones in March 2025 and is now used almost daily for strikes, according to Ukraine’s military. The base is known as Gvardeiskoye in Russian.
An image of the site made on October 11 shows no visible military aircraft, but extensive new infrastructure, which observers say is related to drone launches from the Soviet-era airbase.
The transformation of the Hvardiyske base has raised questions over why Kyiv has not been able to disable the site with its own attack drones and missiles.
A section of the Hvardiyske airfield seen on October 11, 2026 (top) and June 2024.
Ukraine has frequently hit Russian drone storage and launch facilities in Crimea, including on the remote southeastern Cape Chauda and near Balaklava in a strike that reportedly took the site out of action. Hvardiyske has been hit by Ukrainian drones but damage has been minimal.
A Crimean local and former officer of the Ukrainian military spoke with RFE/RL’s Crimean Service on condition of anonymity about possible reasons why the sprawling drone port at Hvardiyske has not yet been disabled by Ukraine’s own attack drones.
“In my opinion, the main reason is that drone operations there are spread across different parts of the airfield,” he said. “The launch site is in one location, the maintenance area in another, and the storage facilities are in a third.”
“All of this is relatively simple infrastructure that can be easily restored, and some of it is just standing out in the open,” he added.
In the October 11 satellite image sourced by RFE/RL (above), scores of unidentified objects can be seen spaced several meters apart on open grassland in the southwestern corner of the airbase.
A 2012 image of the Hvardiyske air base.
The former Ukrainian Armed Forces officer told RFE/RL that an underground storage facility built by the Soviets to store aircraft munitions, which is located around 15 kilometers from the Hvardiyske base, is a likely location for the mass storage of attack drones launched from the airfield.
“The Shaheds may well be hiding there,” he told RFE/RL, speculating that such a fortified storage space “is probably impossible to penetrate, even with [Ukraine’s] missiles.”
Another reason Hvardiyske may present a more difficult objective for Ukrainian targeteers is its location in the center of Crimea, a peninsula now bristling with air defense weaponry.
Unlike coastal launch sites, which can be approached from over the sea, Ukrainian drones aiming 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.
A file photo of Shahed drones stored in sheds in Russia’s Oryol region. The Iranian-designed, long-range attack drones have been widely used by Russia to strike targets in Ukraine, with Moscow also producing its own versions.
The Hvardiyske air base served as a Soviet, then Ukrainian, naval aviation base.
Following the Russian annexation of Crimea, the facility was taken over by the Russian Aerospace Forces, which stationed Su-24M bombers and Su-25SM ground-attack jet aircraft at the base until its transformation into a drone port.