The Orion UAV fell on the russian city of Taganrog, which is near the state border of Ukraine on the shore of the Sea of Azov. He aimed at a lumber yard and caused a fire there, damaging buildings and several cars. At the same time, the russian mass media do not report human casualties among the city's residents.
Local authorities have not officially announced the ownership of the UAV. At the same time, photos and videos from the scene, including a fragment of the fuselage on which identification marks can be seen, directly indicate that the aircraft belonged to the russian military. By this time, OSINT researchers had already identified that the wreckage could very likely belong to the russian Orion UAV. The place of the event was also determined.
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It can be stated that the russian UAV, which has a wingspan of 16 meters, fell near the place of possible takeoff - just 1.5 km from the runway of the Taganrog air base, which is used by the russian military for basing combat aircraft, in particular Su -25, and is also used by the Taganrog Aviation Plant.
Taking into account the fact that the cameras show how the UAV is flaming up immediately after the fall, as well as taking into account the place where the drone fell, it is possible to assume that the Orion fell immediately after takeoff. So this means that it can be based precisely on the air base in Taganrog, which is located only 130 km from the current front line.
It is worth adding that the russian federation is trying to position the Orion UAV as the russian Bayraktar TB2. But the russian development objectively does not reach the Turkish drone by its characteristics. In particular, the Bayraktar TB2 has a take-off weight of 650 kg and a payload of up to 150 kg, while the russian Orion weighs 1,000 kg and can carry only 180 kg of payload.
The russian drone is significantly larger with a wingspan of 16.3 meters and a length of 8 meters compared to 12 and 6.5 meters for the Bayraktar TB2. At the same time, both drones can stay in the air for about 24 hours.
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