Belarus Air Force Reportedly Engages Russian Kamikaze Drone

In the early hours of Thursday, Aug. 29, Belarus likely used its aviation for the first time to shoot down a Russian kamikaze drone that had entered its airspace during a night attack on Ukraine, according to the monitoring Telegram channel Belaruski Hayun.

During another Russian attack on Ukraine, a Shahed drone accidentally flew into Belarusian airspace in the Yelsk district. According to monitoring data, a Belarusian Air Force fighter jet tried to intercept the drone for about 20 minutes. At around 3:55 a.m. in the Yelsk district of the Gomel region, at least two explosions were heard, and a bright flash was seen in the sky.

“This is likely the first recorded instance of a Belarusian Air Force fighter attempting to destroy an actual military target in the sky – a Russian Shahed-type kamikaze drone,” the post reads.

According to the Ukrainian Air Force, the Russian military launched an attack on Ukraine during the night of Aug. 28-29, using 74 Shahed drones and 5 missiles of various types. The attacks were launched from the Kursk and Belgorod regions, as well as from the Krasnodar region.

This massive missile strike was the third this week. Earlier, on Aug. 26 and 27, Moscow also targeted Ukrainian civilian infrastructure. The attack on Aug. 26 was the largest of the entire war. A total of 236 aerial attack means were launched across Ukraine, of which air defense systems destroyed 102 missiles and 99 attack drones.

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The monitoring group Belaruski Hayun reported that in July of this year, at least nine Shahed-131/136 attack drones, regularly used by Russia to strike Ukraine, entered Belarusian airspace. One of them exploded, another disappeared, and the rest returned to Ukrainian airspace.

For example, a drone that entered Belarus on the night of July 13 flew over 350 km to Vitebsk and then disappeared. Its fate remains unknown. On July 16, a drone flew over 400 km across Belarus and exploded in the Zhlobin district of the Gomel region, approximately 55 kilometers from the city of Bobruisk.