The soldiers who launched the Russian drone in the Kharkiv region had previously trained in the Murmansk oblast at a military base near the Pechenga River.
Slidstvo.Info journalists learned about this from a video of a Russian attack drone launched by Russian soldiers from the 200th Separate Guards Motorised Rifle Brigade of the Kutuzov Order.
The drone recorded the positions of the Russians and the drone operators themselves. Some of the drone footage shows the area where the Russian military was training. The lakes and roads have a distinctive shape, and the corresponding objects can be found on a map using Google Earth.
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- Screenshot from the Russian drone video
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- Screenshot from the Russian drone video
The drone photo also shows a two-storey building near which Russian soldiers are keeping ammunition and vehicles.
Screenshot from the Russian drone video
Using Google Earth, Slidstvo.Info journalists identified the exact location of this building. It is also located in the Murmansk region, near Lake Santayarvi, where the 200th Separate Motorised Rifle Brigade of the Russian Army was training back in 2015.
Photo from Google Earth
In 2023, the military performed combat missions on the territory of Ukraine, in the Kharkiv oblast. The drone footage shows that the drone was conducting reconnaissance and flying over the village of Vysoka Yaruga, in the north of Kharkiv region, and in the border areas.
Vysoka Yaruga village, northern Kharkiv region / screenshot from the Russian drone video
The journalists even managed to geolocate the location of Russian dugouts. The positions of the Russians, from where they launched the combat drone across Ukraine, were located near the border with Ukraine on the Russian side.
Some of the footage shows that the drone has a device attached to it, which sometimes enters the frame. According to the Ukrainian operator of the Viking FVP drone, it is a device for dropping a VOG (fragmentation mortar shot).
“It’s a device for dropping a VOG on a Mavic 3. These are large shells, like half a banana in size, and they explode like small grenades. There are very small aluminium fragments that can easily maim and injure,” says Viking.
The 200th Separate Motorised Rifle Brigade of the Russian Army is subordinate to the Russian Northern Fleet. The military unit is located in the Murmansk oblast near the Arctic Ocean.
There is evidence in open sources that this brigade has been involved in the war with Ukraine since 2014. In the battle for the 32nd checkpoint near Novotoshkivka in the Luhansk region in autumn 2014, Ukrainian soldiers killed several Russian contract soldiers. At that time, Russian military personnel did not openly participate in the war.
