Drone strikes set Russian military airbase on fire in Rostov-on-Don

Air raid alerts sounded across Rostov-on-Don, sending local residents scrambling to post footage of a massive fire in the area. OSINT analysts geolocated the blaze directly to the Rostov-on-Don Tsentralny military airfield. The bulk of the fire (marked by a red circle) was concentrated on a section of the airfield normally used to park military planes and helicopters.

Local monitoring channels also reported hits on base infrastructure and military aircraft, sharing video footage captured from multiple angles that showed successive secondary explosions tearing through the site.

Rostov Oblast Governor Yury Slyusar confirmed that a fire broke out following the attack but did not mention the military airfield. According to Slyusar, falling drone debris damaged a substation, triggering a secondary explosion that knocked out power across four districts in the oblast.

Thick smoke rose near the Taganrog-Central military airfield on September 12 following a drone attack, after local social media channels flagged incoming drones over Rostov Oblast. Eyewitness videos circulating online allowed open-source intelligence analysts to geolocate the plumes directly to the airbase, indicating it was a primary target of the strike.