Jens Asbjørn Bøgen
The unit, hailed for being “very effective” suffered a humiliating blow.
The Rubicon group, regarded as one of Russia’s most efficient drone divisions, has been central to Moscow’s recent military operations.
It played a key role in pushing Ukrainian troops out of the Kursk region earlier this year and has been deeply involved in Russia’s offensive to seize Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine.
Maria Berlinska, who heads the Ukrainian Aerial Reconnaissance Support Centre, described Rubicon as “Russia’s best technological unit.”
“Rubicon has brilliant management, works systematically, selects the best personnel, provides training, and supplies all necessary resources,” she wrote on Facebook, adding, “They pour money into it. Everyone who knows how Rubicon works agrees on one thing: It is very effective.”
But now, that image has been thoroughly tarnished
Devastating Ukrainian blow
According to Ukraine’s Defence Intelligence agency (GUR), a Ukrainian intelligence drone strike has destroyed the command centre of Rubicon, in what Kyiv says was a major blow to Moscow’s battlefield capabilities.
GUR reports that special forces used an FP-2 unmanned aerial vehicle to drop more than 100 kilograms of explosives on the Rubicon unit’s headquarters.
The detonation tore through the building, causing multiple casualties among Russian personnel.
Precision strike in Donetsk
The GUR located the headquarters in Avdiivka, a city in the Donetsk region captured by Russian forces in February 2024.
In a Telegram statement, the agency said: “Using the obtained coordinates of the enemy’s location, GUR specialists, in conditions of dense urban development, skillfully directed the FP-2 unmanned device equipped with a 105-kilogram warhead at the Muscovites.
As a result of the strike, officers and UAV operators of the Russian ‘Rubicon’ who were in the headquarters were eliminated.”
The extent of the damage or the exact number of casualties has not been disclosed.
Ongoing heavy losses
Ukraine’s General Staff reported that Russia had lost 849 troops in the previous 24 hours across the front lines, bringing the total number of Russian military losses to over 1.14 million since the start of the war, according to Kyiv’s data.
Russia’s Defence Ministry, meanwhile, claimed progress in Pokrovsk, saying its troops had surrounded Ukrainian defenders near the city’s railway station.
President Volodymyr Zelensky rejected those claims, asserting that Russian forces had made “no advances” in the past day, though he acknowledged that around 300 Russian soldiers remained entrenched in the embattled city.
Sources: GUR Telegram, Facebook, Reuters, BBC, Kyiv Independent.
This article is made and published by Jens Asbjørn Bogen, who may have used AI in the preparation
