Ukraine claims strikes on Russian rocket centre, air base and oil facility

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Saturday that Ukrainian forces attacked the Progress Rocket and Space Centre in Russia's Samara region, a site that produces and launches space vehicles for Roscosmos. He said the strike was carried out with FP-5 Flamingo cruise missiles and described the centre as a key enterprise involved in electronics production.

Zelenskyy also reported hits on the Savasleyka air base in the Nizhny Novgorod region, which he said housed aircraft used for missile attacks on Ukraine, and on an oil facility in Ust-Luga near the Estonian border. Video posted on X showed smoke and flames at the targeted sites.

"Our plan of long-range sanctions against Russia for this war is being implemented, and it is important that Russia’s war potential be reduced," Zelenskyy wrote.

The Ukrainian General Staff confirmed that strikes were recorded at both the Progress centre and the air base, noting a fire on the facilities' grounds. It added that launch vehicles produced at the centre have been used to place Russian military, reconnaissance and communications satellites into orbit, and that the Savasleyka base operates MiG-31K fighters that can carry Kh-47M2 Kinzhal ballistic missiles.

In response, the Ukrainian air force reported that Russian forces launched 152 drones and loitering munitions overnight, with air defences downing or neutralising 124 of them across 16 locations. Russian attacks in Ukraine's Kherson, Dnipropetrovsk, Sumy, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kharkiv regions injured dozens, including a child killed in Dnipropetrovsk.