Belarusian Air Defense Attacked Russian Drone

The circumstances of the Ukrainian attack from the territory of Belarus have been published.

The Ukrainian publication TEXTY.ORG.UA published infographics of the approximate trajectories of Russian drones that attacked Ukraine from September 6 to November 3. In accordance with it, one of the attacks occurred from the territory of Belarus; the UAV headed for the Khmelnytski region.

Journalists took the data for compiling the infographics from the Ukrainian monitoring channel Monitor, which specializes in recording the trajectory of Russian aircraft, drones and missiles.

Flagstaff turned to the specialists of the monitoring channel with a request to indicate the circumstances of the attack from the territory of Belarus:

“The map may incorrectly display the route of experimental Russian UAVs made of light materials, plywood and engines, i.e. not Shaheds. They crossed the Belarusian border around 00:00–02:00 on the night from 24.10 to 25.10. No UAV launches from the territory of Belarus were recorded during the observation period.”

This information is consistent with data from the service that records air alerts, Map air alerts: an extended air alert was announced over the Kyiv and Zhytomyr regions of Ukraine on the night of November 24-25. The alarm was declared over the Kyiv region at 23:59 and ended in the Zhytomyr region at 04:47.

The time the Russian UAV was detected in the border area coincided with the day when residents of the Palessie regional centers of the Homel region recorded the sound of loud explosions.

This happened on the night of October 25 at 4:04. Residents of Mazyr heard the loud sound of explosions. The noise was so strong that many felt the vibration of the walls and heard the rattling of glass, frightened dogs barked, and car alarms went off. People who heard the explosion describe it as “terrible”. Some people were able to hear two or three separate explosions. Mazyr residents massively shared this on social media on October 25.

In addition to the residents of Mazyr, at the same time the sound of the explosion was heard by residents of neighboring villages. The noise of explosions was also recorded in the Naroulia and Yelsk districts.

A resident of Mazyr, who recorded the explosion while on the street, reported on the condition of anonymity to Flagstaff about the perceived epicenter of the explosion:

“The source of the sound was somewhere behind the oil refinery, that is, in the direction of Naroulia.”

Another source said that the noise came from the area of the village of Vialiki Bokau, where air defense missile systems have been located since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine:

“There were two launches from Bokau.”

The current authorities chose not to notice the explosion.

When Flagstaff asked about the explosions on the EMERCOM duty telephone, they then answered:

“I can’t answer this question, everything is calm here. It could be... maybe the hooligans were playing around, something made a loud noise. Everything is calm here, everything is fine, there is nothing to worry about.”

An anonymous police blog, which specializes in covering repressions in Palessie, gave a deliberately unrealistic version on October 26:

“From 23.10 to 27.10.2023, planned demolition work is being carried out in the Korosten granite deposit in Ukraine. Yes, yes, it’s as simple as that, our neighbors are just engaged in their industry.”

The police were not embarrassed by the significant distance of this city (125 kilometers from Mazyr), nor by the fact that blasting work was not carried out at night.

Thus, we can conclude that due to a Russian drone flying in the border area at 4:04 a.m. on October 25, the combat use of air defense missile systems located in the Mazyr region occurred.

Judging by the fact that the drone continued to move from the border area in the direction of the Khmelnytski region of Ukraine, it was not possible to hit the Russian drone.