A drone attack claimed by kyiv targeted an industrial site in Tatarstan on Tuesday and injured 13 people, said the authorities of this Russian republic located more than 1,000 kilometers from Ukraine.
Ukraine regularly carries out drone attacks or sabotage against factories, railways or refineries on Russian territory, but it is rare for a strike to affect infrastructure so far from the border.
A source within the Ukrainian defense sector, interviewed by AFP, affirmed that it “was an operation of the GUR”, the Ukrainian military intelligence, which has in the past claimed responsibility for multiple attacks of this type on Russian soil.
“An aerial drone attack was carried out this morning against factories in Tatarstan located in Yelabuga and Nizhnekamsk,” the press service of the leader of this central Russian republic, Rustam Minnikhanov, said on Telegram.
The attack “did not cause serious damage, the technological process of the companies was not disrupted”, assured the press release, without specifying which factories were targeted.
The Tatarstan Ministry of Health, however, reported 13 people injured by the explosion caused by the drone, who are “students, including two minors”. “Eight people were hospitalized for injuries of light or medium severity, their lives are not threatened,” he added on Telegram.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov assured him that the Russian army “is striving to minimize and then completely eliminate the threat” of Ukrainian strikes in Russia.
It is the Alabouga special economic zone (SEZ), located about ten kilometers from the city of Ielabuga, which was targeted around 02:45 GMT Tuesday (10:45 p.m. Monday in Quebec), according to the press service of the SEZ. This area has factories and companies, specializing in the production of chemicals, mechanics and metal processing.
“Company assembling drones”
According to the source within the Ukrainian defense sector interviewed by AFP, the strike targeted a drone assembly site. “It was a GUR operation, an attack by Ukrainian drones on a company assembling drones [explosifs] Shahid. Significant damage was inflicted on the site,” said this source, without specifying whether the attack was launched from Russian or Ukrainian territory.
The other targeted site, in Nizhnekamsk, is a major oil refinery. According to local authorities, the drone was neutralized by an electronic jamming system and its fall caused no injuries or damage.
Drone attacks targeting Russian energy sites have increased in recent months, causing major fires, particularly in refineries.
kyiv had promised to bring the fighting to Russian soil in retaliation for the numerous bombings of its territory.
Russia intensified its strikes on Ukrainian energy networks in the spring, leading to electricity cuts and rationing which affected hundreds of thousands of civilians.
Conquest of “403 km2 » ?
The Russian Defense Minister claimed Tuesday the conquest of more than 400 km2 of territory in Ukraine since the beginning of the year, ensuring that its troops are on the initiative in the face of Ukrainian soldiers lacking ammunition.
“In total, since the beginning of the year, 403 km2 of territory of the new regions of the Russian Federation have come under our control,” Minister Sergei Shoigu said at a military meeting, according to his ministry.
It refers to the Ukrainian regions of Lugansk, Kherson, Donetsk and Zaporizhia, which Russia claims to annex and which it only partly controls.
Sergei Shoigu affirmed that his soldiers continued “to push the Ukrainian units towards the west”.
In recent months, the Russian army has claimed the capture of several villages and, above all, Avdiïvka, a fortress town in the east to which Ukrainian forces have held on as best they could for years.
Russian soldiers, however, failed to achieve a major breakthrough, with large sections of the front remaining frozen. They nevertheless seem to have taken advantage of the difficulties of the Kiev army, faced with a shortage of ammunition, recruitment difficulties and the cessation of Western aid.
The US Institute for the Study of War (ISW) estimated last week that Russia had seized 505 km2 of territory in Ukraine since last October.