Russian campaign against Europe 🇷🇺🇪🇺

🔹This morning, at least four Russian drones violated Moldovan airspace 🇲🇩; at least one crashed in a field.
🔹Another Russian drone (Gerbera) violated Romanian airspace 🇷🇴 and crashed near Suceava. Two F-16s were scrambled to intercept it. Separately, two Spanish F-18s had taken off earlier after Russian drones approached the border.
🔹In Poland 🇵🇱, a fire also broke out at a Starlink transmission station (linking Ukraine and Poland) following the sabotage of a generator.

These events occurred amidst a massive wave of Russian strikes against western Ukraine 🇺🇦 overnight and this morning. A number of Geran-2 drones managed to cross Ukrainian airspace to attack targets in the center and west of the country. As of now, at least 25 Russian Geran-2/4 drones are in Ukrainian airspace, with launches continuing since yesterday.

Map link : t.me/StrategicaviationT

1/3 This remained largely undercover, but Russia 🇷🇺 is trying to isolate Ukraine 🇺🇦 from Romania 🇷🇴 and the southern part of Odessa oblast. Russia is targeting border outposts, gas stations, bridges and ports in this "southern Bessarabia" region.

In 2022, there were already scenarios of how Russia would use this region to attack Odessa from the south. It never happened because Russian forces were defeated in Mykolaiv and their navy couldn't do anything.

This year, I did some uchronic scenarios of how Russia would use Transnistria to invade southern Bessarabia, support an offensive coming from the east or a Ukrainian operation in Transnitria. Today, I believe none of them (apart the UA one ?) are possible.

Today, only two bridges are connecting Odessa with the southern part of the oblast or with Romania/Moldova.

🔹Mayaki bridge (one bridge, part of the road goes through Moldova) + 2 new bridges
🔹Zatoka road/rail bridge, heavily targeted by drones, missiles, KABs...

2/3 On September 19th, a Russian Geran-4 drones targeted the new bridge in Mayaki. This shows how important targeting bridges is, since there are only a few of them.

In total, at least 14 gas stations have been targeted by Russia in Odessa region, mainly in the key road between the southern ports and Mykolaiv. These Russian attacks are being conducted by geran-4 drones. Map made thanks to @ShahedTracker that did a great geolocating work.

Ukraine is sharing one road border and a ferry crossing with Romania. Both of them were targeted this summer :

🔹August 20th 2026
🔹September 1st 2026

Additionally, Russia targeted at least 3 border post with Moldova :

-Vinohradivka - August 25th 2026 Mirnoe - August 20th 2026
-Starokozache - September 8th geoloc by @giK1893

Many of these strikes remain unreported, I will continue to keep an eye on those.

After bridges, border posts and gas station, which are all part of "Transport - Road" category, it's interesting to see the statistics for this year :

3/3 Odesa remained the 1st or second most targeted oblast in terms of long range road and port logistics. This year, Odessa has been very heavily targeted. There was not a single recent day without a Russian strike on the city.

Warehouses are being destroyed, the port is constantly attacked, electric substations and railways are threatened. It's worth noting the high number of attacks against civilian targets in this area : Drones often don't have high rise buildings on their flight path and strikes on civilian buildings are happening everyday. @giK1893 and @99Dominik_ are tracking these strikes very often.

What is Russian strategy in this region ?

▫️Cut the southern part of the oblast from the rest of the country
▫️Stop civilian/economic link with Romania and Moldova
▫️Prevent the use of this part of the country from attacking Crimea with drones.

Thank you for following this thread, I hope you like it and find it useful. I will keep an eye on this.