CCTV footage released by Ukrainian state-sponsored media agency United 24 shows a missile impact at a theater located in the city center of Chernihiv. While the strike is currently being played out as an overt strike against a civilian target, open source intelligence reporting shows that a massive drone manufacturer's meeting was taking place at the building at the time of the attack.

On Facebook, one of the event attendees said in a statement that the meeting was not a public convention, but a private meeting of drone manufacturers with military personnel present. Throughout the Facebook post the woman makes it clear that there was extreme security concerns about the location of the convention, and if you go down to the comments section things quickly get ugly.

This is what is currently being reported. The announcement and details of the event were made public, which is how Russian intelligence assets obtained the location and knew the time to target the building. It's unclear at this time how many people were killed in the attack, and not all of them were military personnel. Some early reports state that at least 50 drone operators were injured and another 20 attendees were killed, but that is unconfirmed at this time. We'll be updating this post or making an update in another post as more information becomes available.

All of that said, the meeting was comprised of drone engineers and military personnel meeting to discuss technologies that were being sent to the front-lines, likely making this an actionable and legitimate military target for Russian forces. The tragedy here is that proper operational and personal security precautions were not taken for this meeting, which resulted in the Russians having a clear line of attack to hit one of their biggest obstacles in the war.

About the Author

Josh Brooks

Josh is an American writer and former USMC machine gunner with eight years of experience in ground combat arms throughout the GWOT. He is currently based in Texas and specializes in combat footage analysis and digital marketing.Follow Josh at OfficialJoshBrooks.com