Dnipro Osint, a Ukrainian OSINT analyst, пишет that the conclusion about the underground workshops was made on the basis of satellite images. He assumes that the idea of moving production underground arose after the first Ukrainian strikes on “Alabuga”.
Z-blogger “Military Informant” claims that Russia is repeating the Iranian approach in this case: in Iran, many production workshops and storage bases were moved underground because of the US advantage in the air. In his opinion, with this placement of workshops and storage of “Geraniums”, it will become practically impossible to hit these targets with Ukrainian kamikaze drones and conventional cruise missiles.
Dnipro Osint agrees with this assessment and considers attacks on “Alabuga” to be “absolutely unjustified from an economic point of view”. He calls strikes on the production chain more realistic — on gunpowder plants, chemical plants, and the Russian VNIIR “Progress”, which manufactures antennas for “Shaheds” and helps them operate with almost no interference from electronic warfare.
In the special economic zone “Alabuga” in Tatarstan, Russia’s largest drone production facility is located, where “Geraniums”, that is, Russian “Shaheds”, are assembled. In April 2024, the AFU had already attacked this facility: a Ukrainian drone hit the dormitory of the “Alabuga Polytech” college, after which 13 students were injured.
At the same college, students, including minors, are involved in drone assembly. According to the source, it was this facility that became one of the first targets of attacks on “Alabuga” last year.
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