Ukraine said Russian rocket facility hit operations reached the Progress rocket centre in the Samara region and a military airfield in the Nizhny Novgorod region on Saturday, with fires reported at both sites. Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Flamingo cruise missiles struck the rocket facility about 900km from Ukraine’s border.
The Ukrainian armed forces said direct hits were recorded at two sites, while Ivan Noskov said Samara’s industrial infrastructure sustained localised damage. The strike matters because the Progress plant produces rockets used to launch satellites for the Rassvet broadband network, placing a military target inside a wider industrial chain.
Progress rocket centre in Samara
Zelenskyy said on Saturday that Flamingo cruise missiles struck the rocket facility and that Russia’s war potential should be reduced through damage to specific facilities. The quotation points to a deliberate targeting choice rather than a broad attack pattern, with the Progress plant standing about 900km from Ukraine’s border.
The Samara plant produces rockets used to launch satellites for the Rassvet broadband network, which Russia is developing as an alternative to Starlink. That gives the strike a narrower operational focus: it hit infrastructure tied to launch capability, not just a single building at a single address.
Nizhny Novgorod region airfield
Ukraine’s armed forces said direct hits were recorded at the airfield in the Nizhny Novgorod region and at the Progress rocket centre in the Samara region. Fires broke out at both sites after the strikes, but the source does not say how much damage the rocket centre or the airfield suffered.
Ivan Noskov later said Samara’s industrial infrastructure sustained localised damage. His account narrows the picture to damage around the plant rather than a wider outage across the region.
Kyiv and Russia’s missile claims
Early on Sunday, Russian forces launched a missile attack on Kyiv, causing fires in at least two districts. Vitali Klitschko said falling debris caused a fire in a non-residential part of a northern suburb and that several cars were on fire.
Russia’s defence ministry said its drones and missiles had struck Ukrainian logistics centres and energy and transport infrastructure used by the Ukrainian army in the past 24 hours. That claim sits alongside Ukraine’s account of direct hits inside Russia, leaving the two militaries describing the same period of fighting in opposite terms.
The next sequence is already visible in the claims on both sides: Ukraine says it can reach deeper into Russia, while Russia says it is hitting Ukrainian logistics and infrastructure over the same 24-hour span. For residents in Kyiv and in Russia’s affected regions, the immediate fact is not the rhetoric but the fires, debris, and local damage left behind.
