Ukraine’s drone attacks find a new target: Russian alcohol

A Ukrainian official tests drones on an airfield near Kyiv in 2022.

Ukraine targeted alcohol distilleries in drone attacks deep inside Russia early Tuesday.

Dmitry Milyaev, the governor of the Tula province, said in a statement Tuesday that the drones struck distilleries in Yefremov and Luzhlovsky.

Tambov province governor Maksim Egorov said that drones struck the Biokhim enterprise in Rasskozovo, around 288 miles southeast of Moscow, causing a fire.

The strikes line up with the Ukrainian tactic of using drones to strike far behind Russian borders.

But the choice of target is unusual — generally the drones hit military facilities, fuel depots, or symbolic targets.

One Ukrainian official said this strike was also militarily significant, alleging they were also being used to make fuel and explosives.

The Russian officials said there were no casualties in the attacks.

Pictures circulated online of the aftermath of the Yefremov strike, showing sites near the distillery, including a synthetic rubber plant and a power plant on fire.

Explosions rang out in #Russia at night. Tula and Tambov regions were attacked by drones.

As the local authorities write, two distilleries were under attack in the Tula region. There is the company “Biochim”, which also produces alcohol, was also under attack in the Tambov… pic.twitter.com/qiS8H66d64

— Babel.ua: Ukraine at war (@UaBabel) October 22, 2024
Some observers quipped that the attacks would hammer Russian morale by disrupting vodka production.

“Destroy the vodka, destroy Russia. Simple,” wrote analyst Ian Garner on X.

Though the plants do produce alcohol, B-17 could find no suggestion that it was for consumption.

Andrii Kovalenko, head of the Center for Countering Disinformation at the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, on Telegram, had a more sober explanation.

He said that the distilleries attacked Tuesday were being used for producing explosives and fuel for Russia’s war effort.

“These are all military objects, despite being disguised as something else,” Kovalenko wrote, per the Ukrainian news site UN.

According to Biokhim’s website, it makes ethyl alcohol and products of “strategic importance to the [Russian] state,” reported Reuters.

The strikes come after Ukraine, in a drone attack on Saturday, struck industrial sites linked to Russia’s military in Dzerzhinsk in Russia’s Nizhny Novgorod.