Ukraine says it destroyed six Russian aircraft in one night, on the ground, at an airfield 160 kilometres from the front line. If the claim holds, it is among the heaviest single-night losses Russia has taken at one air base since the invasion began.

The target was Rostov-on-Don Tsentralny, a military airfield in a city Russia uses as a logistics spine for the whole southern axis. President Volodymyr Zelensky said long-range drones operated by the Security Service of Ukraine hit an Antonov An-12, two An-26s and three helicopters overnight into 17 September.

What was actually parked there

The aircraft named in the claim are transports, not fighters, and that is the point rather than a disappointment. The An-12 is a four-engine turboprop freighter, the Soviet answer to the C-130. The An-26 is its smaller twin-engine cousin. Neither drops bombs on Ukrainian cities. Both move the spare parts, ammunition, personnel and engines that keep the aircraft which do.

Rostov Tsentralny hosts a composite transport aviation regiment, which is exactly the sort of unit that turns a supply problem into a solved problem overnight. Destroying six airframes there does not reduce Russian strike capacity this week. It makes sustaining it more expensive for months.

Transports are also the hardest category for Russia to replace. An-12 production ended in the 1970s and An-26 production in the 1980s, both at plants that are now in Ukraine. There is no line to reopen and no friendly supplier to call. Every one destroyed is subtracted permanently from a shrinking pool.

How much of this is confirmed

Enough to take seriously, not enough to treat as settled. The aircraft count and types come from the Ukrainian side, and Kyiv has an obvious interest in the number being six rather than two. No satellite imagery had been published to corroborate the tally at the time of writing.

What is not in dispute is that something large burned. Rostov regional governor Yury Slyusar confirmed a fire following the attack, and monitoring channels published footage of a substantial blaze with what sounded like secondary detonations. Falling debris knocked out a transformer substation and cut power to four districts of the city.

In Yaroslavl, roughly 700 kilometres north, governor Mikhail Yevrayev confirmed damage to the oil refinery, along with broken windows and damaged cars nearby, and said nobody was killed or injured. Ukraine says the AVT-3 primary processing unit was hit in a joint operation involving the SBU, the Unmanned Systems Forces, military intelligence and the Foreign Intelligence Service.

Why Rostov keeps getting hit

This airfield has been struck repeatedly through 2026, which tells you two things. It is valuable, and it is reachable. Russia has concentrated a great deal of its air defence around Moscow and the leadership’s residences, and the arithmetic of covering everything else has never worked.

Ukraine has meanwhile stopped treating deep strike as a special event. Refineries one night, an airfield the same night, using different organisations and different drone types against targets 700 kilometres apart. That is not a raid. That is a campaign with a schedule.

Sources: Ukrainska Pravda, Kyiv Independent, Kyiv Post, Defense Express, United24 Media, statements by President Zelensky and the Security Service of Ukraine, and by the governors of Rostov and Yaroslavl regions.