Ukraine said domestically produced Flamingo missiles struck Russia’s Progress Center in Samara and that another attack hit the Savasleyka air base, as both countries expanded drone and missile strikes deep beyond the front lines.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
Ukraine carried out a series of long-range attacks deep inside Russia on Saturday, striking industrial and military facilities hundreds of miles from the Ukrainian border as the aerial war between the two countries continued to expand far beyond the battlefield.
Russian officials reported a major attack on industrial infrastructure in the southwestern Samara region, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Kyiv’s forces had struck a facility involved in Russian rocket production as well as a military air base.
Ivan Noskov, head of the city of Samara, said Russian air defenses had repelled a “massive” missile attack but acknowledged “localized damage” to industrial sites in the regional capital.
Noskov said people injured in the attack had received medical assistance but did not provide a casualty total or additional information about their conditions.
Zelenskyy identified one of the targets as the Progress Center in Samara, an industrial facility operating under Russia’s Roscosmos space agency that is involved in producing rocket technology and electronics.
He said Ukrainian forces used domestically manufactured Flamingo missiles in the operation.
The facility is approximately 900 kilometers, or 560 miles, from the Ukrainian border.
Zelenskyy also said Ukrainian forces struck Russia’s Savasleyka air base, located roughly 700 kilometers, or 430 miles, from the front line.
“Peace is needed, and this must be evident in Russia — through concrete damage to specific facilities,” Zelenskyy wrote on social media.
The strikes are part of a rapidly expanding Ukrainian campaign against Russian military-industrial facilities, air bases and energy infrastructure.
Kyiv has said its objective is to reduce Moscow’s capacity to sustain the war while disrupting oil and energy revenues that help finance Russia’s military operations. Ukrainian leaders have also increasingly argued that attacks inside Russia are intended to bring the consequences of the invasion directly to Russian territory.
The war, which began with Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, is now in its fifth year.
Most Ukrainian strikes have traditionally reached targets within approximately 200 kilometers, or 125 miles, but Kyiv has significantly expanded the frequency of deeper attacks this year.
Ukraine conducted three times as many long-range strikes in July as it did in January, according to data from ACLED, an independent conflict-monitoring organization.
The growing reach of Ukrainian missiles and drones has forced Russia to defend a much larger geographic area, requiring Moscow to disperse air-defense systems across military installations, industrial centers and other strategic sites far from Ukraine.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces intercepted 598 Ukrainian drones Saturday across 19 Russian regions as well as over the Black Sea, the Azov Sea and Russian-occupied Crimea.
The ministry did not say how many Ukrainian drones or missiles reached their intended targets.
One Ukrainian drone attack also struck a private residence in Shatura in the Moscow region, according to regional Gov. Andrey Vorobyov.
Two people were wounded, including a 9-year-old child.
While Ukraine intensified its attacks inside Russia, Moscow continued launching large numbers of drones against Ukrainian cities and infrastructure.
A Russian drone strike on an apartment building in southeastern Ukraine killed a 3-month-old baby and wounded 11 other people Saturday, according to Ukrainian officials.
Oleksandr Hanzha, head of the Dnipropetrovsk Regional Military Administration, said drones struck the residential building in the town of Marhanets.
Ukraine’s Air Force said Russia launched 152 drones across the country Saturday.
Ukrainian defenses destroyed 124 of them, according to the Air Force.
Russia’s Defense Ministry separately said its forces targeted warehouses and other infrastructure at the Ukrainian ports of Odesa, Izmail and Yuzhnyi.
Those ports have remained strategically important to Ukraine’s commercial shipping, military logistics and access to the Black Sea.
Saturday’s violence unfolded as hundreds of people gathered in Kyiv to mourn another family killed in an earlier Russian drone attack.
A memorial ceremony was held for 3-year-old Dmytro Kucher and his grandparents, Halyna and Petro Kucher, who died when multiple Russian drones destroyed their home in the Brovary district northeast of Kyiv on Aug. 8.
The memorial began at Kyiv’s Spaskyi Lyceum, where Halyna Kucher had served as principal for more than two decades.
Mourners later traveled to a churchyard in the suburb of Zazymia near the site of the family’s former home.
The couple’s son, Oleksandr Kucher, said his parents had known each other since childhood and remained together throughout their lives.
“They died together,” he said. “The Shahed (drone) completely tore my mother apart. We recovered only about two kilograms (about 4.4 pounds) of her remains.”
Kucher described his 3-year-old son as “our little miracle” and “the soul of our family.”
“He kept my parents, me and our entire family going,” Kucher said.
The memorial came as both Russia and Ukraine demonstrated an expanding ability to strike far from traditional front-line positions.
Ukraine’s attacks on Samara and Savasleyka underscore Kyiv’s growing emphasis on domestically produced long-range weapons, while Russia continues relying on large waves of drones to attack Ukrainian population centers, ports and infrastructure.
With hundreds of drones launched or intercepted in a single day and missiles reaching targets as far as 900 kilometers inside Russia, the conflict is increasingly being fought across a much broader geographic area even as ground combat continues along the front.
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