Photos and footage posted on social media by local residents purportedly show a fire at the JSC VNIIR-Progress plant in Cheboksary, Chuvash Republic. It is a state institute that produces components for high-precision weapons that Russia uses in its attacks on Ukraine.
After the declaration of an air alert due to the threat of missiles in the area, explosions were heard near the facility. Russian Telegram channels state that the facility was damaged by a Ukrainian-made FP-5 Flamingo missile.
One person was injured in Cheboksary
Residents later, around 7:30 a.m. local time, again saw Ukrainian drones hitting the same object. The governor of the region, Oleg Nikolaev, reported that one person was injured in the attack on Cheboksary.
According to the Ukrainian General Staff, the institute, which is located about 1,200 kilometers from the Ukrainian border, also develops electronic warfare systems, including Comet antennas that are used to jam satellite, radio and radar signals.
Such antennas are used in Shahed-type drones, Iskander-K cruise missiles and air-guided bomb modules, weapons used by Russia to attack military and civilian targets in Ukraine.
NASA’s system recorded fires in the area of the refinery in Kirišić
Later in the morning, the Ukrainian army allegedly carried out an attack on the oil refinery in Kirishi, known as KINEF, one of the largest in Russia in terms of the amount of processing. The governor of the Leningrad region, Aleksandar Drozdenko, first reported the attack in an unspecified industrial zone in Kirishi, and then confirmed that the main target was a refinery.
NASA’s fire monitoring system FIRMS recorded multiple fires in the area of the refinery, which supports those claims, and photos showing smoke from the plant appeared on social networks.
The refinery in Kirishi is one of the three largest in Russia, with an annual processing capacity of around 20 to 21 million tons of crude oil. It produces more than 6% of the total amount of refined petroleum products in Russia, including fuel used by the military.
Drozdenko also stated that 29 drones were shot down over the Leningrad Region. Both the refinery and the institute have been targets of Ukrainian attacks before.
Russia: We shot down a total of 289 drones
The attacks are part of a wider operation during which explosions were also reported in the occupied Crimea and in the Russian cities of Voronezh and Kazan. The mayor of Moscow, Sergei Sobyanin, announced that five drones that were approaching the Russian capital had been shot down.
The Russian Ministry of Defense stated that a total of 289 drones were downed over various Russian regions. Because of the attack, at least 18 Russian airports temporarily suspended traffic, while alerts were declared in regions up to 2,000 kilometers from the Russian-Ukrainian border.
The Ukrainian army has not yet made an official statement, and the extent of the damage is not yet completely clear. Ukraine regularly conducts drone attacks on military and industrial targets in Russia.
A drone hit a residential skyscraper in Moscow yesterday
The Flamingo missile, produced by the controversial Fire Point company, has been used by Ukraine since last summer, initially in a limited number of cases, but its use will become more frequent from November 2025.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky previously called it Ukraine’s “most successful missile”. It is a domestically developed weapon with a warhead of 1,000 kilograms and a range of about 3,000 kilometers.
The latest major attack came a day after a Ukrainian drone struck a residential skyscraper in Moscow, seven kilometers west of the Kremlin and Red Square and three kilometers from the Russian Defense Ministry building.
It was one of the deepest strikes on a residential part of central Moscow since the beginning of the Russian invasion, and it came less than a week before the May 9 Victory Day military parade.
(Vijesti.ba)
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