Ukraine attacks Russia's Samara industrial site as Kyiv ramps up long-range strikes

KYIV — A large-scale Ukrainian attack struck industrial infrastructure in Russia's southwestern Samara region on Saturday, a Russian official said.

Ivan Noskov, head of the region's capital, Samara, said air defence forces had repelled a “massive” missile attack, with “localised damage” to the city's industrial sites. He also said that medical assistance has been provided to those injured in the attack, but did not give further details.

Ukraine has stepped up its long-range aerial attacks on Russian military industries and energy facilities, aiming to cut Moscow's revenue for the war and make Russians feel the consequences of the invasion, now in its fifth year.

Zelenskyy says need for peace has to be felt in Russia

Writing on social media, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Kyiv's forces had carried out a strike against Samara's Progress Centre, which operates under Russian space agency Roscosmos and is involved in producing rocket technology and electronics.

He said that the strike used Ukraine's domestically produced Flamingo missiles to hit the site, which is approximately 900 kilometres from the Ukrainian border.

Zelenskyy also said Russia's Savasleyka air base, some 700 kilometres from the front line, had also been hit.

"Peace is needed, and this must be evident in Russia -- through concrete damage to specific facilities," Zelenskyy wrote.

While most of Ukraine's strikes have a range of less than 200 kilometres, its longer-range attacks have increased dramatically this year. It launched three times as many of those strikes in July as it did in January, according to data from ACLED, an independent conflict monitor. Repeatedly hitting deep into Russia has forced its military to stretch air defences over a larger area.

Russia's Ministry of Defence said Saturday that it had shot down 598 Ukrainian drones over 19 Russian regions, as well as the Black and Azov Seas and the annexed Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea.

Separately, two people, including a nine-year-old child, were wounded when a Ukrainian drone attack hit a private home in the town of Shatura in the Moscow region, local official Andrey Vorobyov said.