Russia has been expanding a drone base near the front lines in eastern Ukraine, adding more launch positions and storage facilities, according to new satellite imagery reviewed by Business Insider. The base is only months old, and it’s growing.
The imagery, which was captured on Wednesday by the US spatial intelligence firm Vantor, shows new additions and construction near one of the launch positions at the main airport in Donetsk, an embattled and occupied region of eastern Ukraine.
Russia began the process of converting the airport into a drone base in summer 2025, installing launch rails and storage sheds at the site to stage attacks against Ukraine.
Construction continued into the fall, and then it accelerated this year, said Kyle Glen, an open-source investigator with the UK-based Centre for Information Resilience, who has closely tracked the expansion.
Russia added two new launch rails in recent weeks, bringing the total at the base from six to eight. It also extended two other launch rails, possibly to support newer, heavier drone variants, Glen told Business Insider.
New structures — identified by Vantor as small drone storage bunkers — have appeared on the taxiway, while various construction equipment can be seen elsewhere at the base near a set of launch rails.
Glen said the new additions come as Russia has increasingly used the airport in its nightly drone and missile attacks against Ukraine. In 2025, drones launched from the Donetsk base on only nine nights. In just January and February of this year, there were launches on nearly three dozen nights.
The Donetsk airport, which once supported civilian flights, stopped all operations in 2014 after Russia’s initial invasion of eastern Ukraine. It is just miles away from the current front lines, so launches from this base give Kyiv’s air defenders little time to respond.
There are drawbacks for the Russians, though. Specifically, the airport’s proximity to Ukrainian-held territory makes it more vulnerable to attack, and Kyiv has carried out strikes against it.
The developments at the Donetsk airport come as Russia continues to expand drone production and related operations.
Russia is producing thousands of Geran one-way attack drones based on the Iranian Shahed-136 every month. Moscow will often launch hundreds of these loitering munitions at Ukrainian cities and civilian infrastructure in a single night.
Further complicating the air defense picture for Ukraine, Russia has modified these drones with jet engines to fly faster and even with air-to-air missile launchers.
Russian drone investments have pushed Ukraine to develop cheap ways to shoot them down to save expensive missiles. Interceptor drones have emerged over the past year as a popular air defense tool, and Kyiv’s defense industry is producing more than 1,000 a day.
Ukraine’s interceptor drone technology has been at the center of conversations about air defense in the Middle East, where the US and its Gulf allies have battled thousands of Iranian attack drones launched after the start of an intense American and Israeli strike campaign that began in late February.
Ukraine has deployed teams of experts to the Middle East to support air defense efforts there. The US Army has also sent an American-made counter-drone system known as the Merops to the region. This weapon has been used extensively in Ukraine.
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