Novomoskovsk: fire at the Azot chemical plant after reported Ukrainian drone attack; Moscow says it downed 531 drones in one night

Ukrainian drones reportedly targeted industrial facilities deep inside Russia overnight into Wednesday, October 28, centred on the chemical plant at Novomoskovsk in the Tula region and the metallurgical works at Lipetsk. The claims about the strikes come from Ukrainian monitoring channels, while Russian governors describe damage from debris and, in the case of Lipetsk, deny that there was a major fire.

Russia’s defence ministry says that from 20:00 on Tuesday to 08:00 on Wednesday (Moscow time) its air defence shot down 531 Ukrainian aircraft-type drones. According to the ministry, the drones flew over the Belgorod, Bryansk, Voronezh, Kaluga, Kursk, Lipetsk, Oryol, Rostov, Ryazan, Smolensk, Tambov and Tula regions, as well as over the Moscow area. It says it downed another 71 drones in the 12 hours of Tuesday daytime. The night’s figure remains below the 808 drones that Moscow declared in one night a few days earlier.

In Novomoskovsk, the Exilenova+ channel wrote that the Azot chemical plant was attacked and that a fire broke out after the strike. The plant belongs to the EuroChem group, is one of Russia’s largest producers of nitrogen fertilisers and makes ammonia, ammonium nitrate and urea. Judging by videos, the same channel estimates that the AM-70 ammonia production unit was burning.

Tula governor Dmitry Milyaev at first spoke of a “massive attack” by drones and of debris damage to apartment blocks, houses and infrastructure in the adjacent industrial zone. He sent laboratories of the regional body “Priroda” and the sanitary service Rospotrebnadzor to the city. He later announced that 64 drones had been shot down over the region. A falling drone hit an apartment block in Novomoskovsk, one person was taken to the city hospital and temporary accommodation was set up for residents.

In Lipetsk, explosions were heard as early as Tuesday evening. Exilenova+ reported a fire in the area of the NLMK (Novolipetsk) steelworks after air defence was activated. The Kyiv Independent recalls that, according to a 2025 investigation by Ukrainska Pravda, the plant supplies Russian defence companies that make air-defence systems, drones and missiles. Ukraine has sanctioned it, while Canada and Australia have imposed sanctions on its owner, Vladimir Lisin.

Governor Igor Artamonov gives a different picture. He called the reports of a large fire at an industrial unit false and said debris fell on tree lines, where the fire was brought under control. According to him, 45 drones were shot down over the region, there were no deaths and one person sought medical help without needing hospital treatment. In Lipetsk the windows of an apartment block were broken, one drone fell in a garden next to a house and another near a home in the Dankov area.

Ukraine’s General Staff announced on Tuesday strikes on October 26 and in the night into October 27 on ammunition depots near Diakove in the Luhansk region and Ohorodnie in the Donetsk region. It also reports hits on materiel depots in Luhansk, Antratsyt and Tymonove, and on concentrations of enemy personnel in Lakhydne and Antratsyt in Luhansk and Novopetrivka in Zaporizhzhia. The attacks on Russian industry continue a series of strikes, the most recent being the attack on Perm.

There is also new information on the 75th Arsenal in Serpukhov, about 60 miles (97 km) south of Moscow, which was attacked by Ukrainian drones in the night into October 22. Greenpeace analysts told The Insider that satellite images of October 26 show traces of fire at three points of the facility, which is considered Russia’s largest known air-defence storage base. The Ukrainian OSINT group Oko Hora claims that workshops 24 and 25, where components for the S-300V, Buk and Tunguska-M systems and for radars are repaired, were hit.