An early morning drone strike damaged a special forces university in the North Caucasus republic of Chechnya, regional leader Ramzan Kadyrov said Tuesday, marking the first such attack on the region since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
“At 6:30 this morning, the roof of an empty building on the territory of the Russian Special Forces University caught fire in Gudermes as a result of an unmanned aerial attack,” Kadyrov said, referring to a town around 36 kilometers (22 miles) east of the capital Grozny.
Images shared on social media showed fire and black smoke rising from what appeared to be the university’s main campus roof.
“No one was killed or injured. The fire has been extinguished,” Kadyrov wrote on Telegram, adding that the attack did not lead to disruptions at the university.
He did not say whether he believed the drone had been launched from Ukraine, noting only that police were investigating the incident. Chechnya is located around 600 kilometers (373 miles) southeast of the border with Ukraine.
Kadyrov later on Tuesday vowed to take revenge for the attack, implicitly acknowledging the drone may have come from Ukraine.
“Today, I ordered all commanders on the front lines [in Ukraine] not to take prisoners, to destroy them [Ukrainians] and intensify the fight by 100%,” Kadyrov told state media in an interview. “They bit us, we’ll destroy them. We’ll soon show them the kind of vengeance they’ve never dreamed of.”
The Russian Special Forces University is the country’s only private educational institution that trains special unit personnel. After Moscow invaded Ukraine in 2022, the university created a center to train soldiers for the war, and it reportedly launched combat drone production this spring.
President Vladimir Putin visited the university, which carries his name, earlier in August.
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