Russian Military Base Being Created 10 Kilometers From Homel: What We Know About It
- 6.02.2022, 13:52
An airfield near the Ukrainian border appeared at the disposal of the Russian military.
Military equipment and manpower continue to accumulate at the abandoned military base of the strategic aviation of the USSR near the village of Ziabrauka. However, in accordance with the official plans, the use of this facility by neither the Russian nor the Belarusian military was mentioned as part of the Allied Resolve 2022 exercise. And the airfield itself has not been used for its intended purpose since the early 1990s.
Flagstaff has collected all available information about this object.
At a briefing for foreign military attaches on the inspection of the military response forces of the Russian Federation and Belarus, which took place on January 18, 2022, the military infrastructure of the Homel region was not mentioned at all.
Despite the published schemes, the military immediately deviated from their plans. After January 20, the old military base was cordoned off by the military police. And on January 27, the plan of the exercises was published, where the square of the accumulation of "allied" troops was indicated southeast of Homel.
On February 3, the regional executive committee of the Homel region, where Ziabrauka is located, and the head of the regional Council of Deputies published a request not to disseminate information about the movement of columns of military equipment online.
Flagstaff collected information from open sources on the net about what is happening in the area of the old airfield. To preserve anonymity, comments are impersonalized.
Now the concentration is at the airfield in Ziabrauka. It is strange that no one writes about this. Daily unloading takes place at the Ziabrauka station, sometimes equipment, sometimes something else. And they transport everything to the airport.
The military town is packed with soldiers. And the take-off is being repaired and cleaned. There the strip is long, perfectly preserved, the parking lots are intact, the steering tracks are almost all in order. And the airfield oil depot has been completely preserved, now it hosts Gazpromneft.
The Russians are settled everywhere, they are well perceived there, for old times sake. Part of the Russian military lives in a field camp, a small part lives in the military town itself in the buildings that have been preserved from the military unit.
The approach of the military equipment to the area of the airfield was recorded on February 4: more than 10 cargo Kamaz trucks, adapted to transport manpower, proceeded along the Homel district bypass in the direction of Tserakhauka.
It is interesting that the Ziabrauka area appeared in the lens almost immediately after the start of the movement of troops. Already on January 21, 2022, the space satellites of the Copernicus project began to produce a special comparative survey of the terrain.
An indirect sign of military activity in the Homel region is the arrival of a Tu-134 aircraft (RA-65690) of the top military leadership of the Russian Federation, recorded by the flightradar24 service, at the civilian Homel airfield (GME). On February 3, after flying around Babruisk, Mazyr and Rechytsa, the plane landed in Homel, after which it flew to Minsk.
At present, there is no doubt that despite the plans announced to the international community, the military of the Russian Federation and Belarus began to use the remnants of the Soviet military infrastructure. The question is how this object will be used: it may disappear before the end of February by the date of the official end of the exercise. Or it may remain an active military facility to create a threat to Ukraine. In this case, the military facility and nearby settlements will become a potential target for a retaliatory strike by Ukraine and its allies.