Drones
Ukraine strikes Oryol and Tolyatti plants linked to Russian missile production; governor reports three dead in Oryol
Ukraine’s General Staff confirmed strikes on two industrial facilities that, according to Kyiv, feed Russia’s missile programme: Proton-Electrotex in Oryol and the Togliattikauchuk complex in Tolyatti. Oryol’s governor reports three dead.
Strikes on Oryol and Tolyatti, on two industrial plants that according to Kyiv feed Russia’s missile programme, were confirmed on Saturday, October 24 by the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces. The attacks took place on Friday, October 23 and overnight into Saturday. The General Staff’s list also includes an aircraft at the airfield in Yeysk, in Russia’s Krasnodar Territory, for which the extent of damage is still being clarified.
In Oryol, the target was the main production building of Proton-Electrotex. The Ukrainian General Staff describes it as a leading Russian manufacturer of optoelectronic equipment, with a full cycle of production “from crystals to the final product”. According to the same source, the company makes units for the S-71 “Kover” air-launched cruise missiles and switch-inverters for the 9M723 ballistic missiles of the Iskander-M, and also takes part in producing the Pantsir-S1 missile-gun air defence system. The strike, Kyiv argues, complicates production of components for the missiles falling on Ukrainian cities.
On the Russian side, the governor of the Oryol region, Andrey Klychkov, wrote on Friday in the MAX app that a factory in the city’s Sovetsky district was hit in a “missile attack” on a civilian facility. In a video message he added that a “fairly serious” fire broke out and was extinguished, and that eight people were taken or went to hospital, as Interfax reported. On Saturday he announced that the bodies of three people were found in the rubble. Local authorities said five of the eight injured are in serious condition, while the consumer-safety agency Rospotrebnadzor measured background radiation of 0.10 to 0.12 microsieverts per hour in the zone affected by the fire, that is, at natural background levels, and detected no pollutants in the air. These Russian statements have not been independently verified.
Tolyatti: a rubber plant used for rocket propellant
The second strike concerns the Togliattikauchuk complex in Tolyatti, in the Samara region. The General Staff reports an explosion and fire in the plant’s area; the plant produces synthetic rubbers, monomers, hydrocarbon fractions and high-octane additives for gasoline. Synthetic rubbers, it notes, are used in the solid propellant of tactical and ballistic missiles. Tolyatti’s mayor Ilya Sukhikh confirmed damage to industrial facilities on Saturday morning, with no dead or injured according to initial information, while Samara governor Vyacheslav Fedorishchev spoke of repelling a drone attack. For a few hours, restrictions were imposed on arrivals and departures at Samara’s Kurumoch airport.
Russia’s Defence Ministry claims that from 20:00 on Friday to 08:00 on Saturday (Moscow time) 616 Ukrainian drones were shot down over 22 Russian regions, among them the Oryol and Samara regions, the Moscow region, Crimea, Tatarstan and Krasnodar, as well as over the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea. The same night Russia launched 126 Shahed-type drones (61 of them jet-powered), Gerbera and decoys against Ukraine, of which Ukrainian air defence says it shot down or neutralised 101.
Kyiv places the strikes within the right of self-defence under Article 51 of the UN Charter, while the General Staff announces that actions against the adversary’s key military targets will continue until the complete cessation of Russian armed aggression. A few days ago Kyiv imposed sanctions on 70 officials of Iskander and Zircon production and struck the “Robo Avia” drone factory in Rostov. The same night Crimea was left without power after a strike on energy infrastructure.
