Ukraine's Defense Forces have successfully struck one of russia's drone launch sites, known as the Tsymbulova drone port. The attack reportedly damaged one of the launch positions used for Geran-series jet-powered drones.
Satellite imagery released by specialist monitoring communities shows signs of fire at the site.
Read more: What ATACMS Missiles Does Ukraine Want to Buy from Turkiye, How Far Can They Fly? 165-km, 300-km Versions Explained
The available imagery also highlights a potential problem: given the size of the drone port, a ballistic missile equipped with a cluster warhead might appear to be an ideal weapon for striking the facility.
However, even such an approach would not necessarily be particularly effective.
The Tsymbulova drone port, located in russia's Oryol region approximately 180 km from the Ukrainian border, is considerably larger than it might initially appear.
The facility stretches for more than 3.5 km from west to east and more than 1.5 km across. Its total area exceeds 2.5 square kilometers.
The M39 Block I cluster-warhead variant of the ATACMS carries 950 M74 submunitions and has a reported footprint of approximately 0.033 square kilometers.
However, this missile can effectively be ruled out in this case because its range is only about 165 km, putting the Tsymbulova site beyond its reach.
The longer-range M39A1 Block I, on the other hand, can reach approximately 300 km. It carries a lighter cluster warhead containing 300 submunitions.
The exact footprint of the M39A1's cluster warhead is not publicly known. If a proportional estimate is applied based on the M39 Block I figures, it could be approximately 0.0104 square kilometers.
That would mean roughly 250 M39A1 missiles would theoretically be required to blanket the entire 2.5-square-kilometer site with cluster submunitions. If the objective were instead to target the individual launch positions, however, the number could be reduced to roughly 20 missiles.
There is another important factor. russian forces appear to understand the capabilities of Ukrainian long-range strike systems and have deliberately dispersed the launch positions across the site. They have also constructed earthworks around them, apparently taking into account an estimated cluster-warhead impact zone of roughly 100 meters in diameter for the M39A1 Block I or comparable weapons.
Moreover, the launchers used for the Geran-4 and Geran-5 are not particularly sophisticated or high-value systems. Destroying individual launchers may therefore be less important than striking the storage and maintenance areas supporting them.
This illustrates one of the fundamental challenges of attacking large drone ports. Even a powerful weapon such as a cluster-warhead ATACMS may not be an efficient solution if the target area is sufficiently large and its critical assets are dispersed.
Read more: Geran-5 Cruise Missile Revealed in russia for the First Time: What Is Known About Weapon Already Used Against Ukraine
