According to information from AFP and an official Russian press service, an industrial site in the Russian region of Tatarstan, more than 1,100 kilometers from the Ukrainian border, was targeted by a Ukrainian drone attack.
A drone attack targeted an industrial site in Tatarstan on Tuesday April 2 and injured two people, said the authorities of this Russian region located more than 1,000 kilometers from Ukraine.
A source within the Ukrainian defense sector, interviewed by AFP, affirmed that it “was an operation of the GUR”, the Ukrainian military intelligence which has claimed responsibility for multiple attacks of this type in the past. against Russian factories or refineries.
Injuries but no “serious damage”
Russia, which has been bombing Ukrainian cities daily for two years, is faced with strikes coming from Ukraine on its border, but it also faces operations organized on Russian territory. The Russian security services (FSB) have, in recent weeks, increased the arrests of Russian nationals accused of preparing attacks on behalf of kyiv or anti-Kremlin organizations fighting on the Ukrainian side.
“An aerial drone attack was carried out this morning against Tatarstan factories located in Yelabuga and Nizhnekamsk,” the press service of Tatarstan’s leader Rustam Minnikhanov said in a statement on Telegram.
The attack “did not cause serious damage, the technological process of the companies was not disrupted”, assures the press release, without specifying which factories were targeted.
“In Yelabuga, there are unfortunately some injured,” he stressed.
It was the Alabouga special economic zone (SEZ), located about ten kilometers from the town of Yelabouga, which was targeted around 02:45 GMT and where there were two injured, according to the SEZ press service. This area has factories and companies, specializing in the production of chemicals, mechanics and metal processing.
Assembly of Iranian drones, oil refinery…
According to the source within the Ukrainian defense sector interviewed by AFP, the strike targeted a drone assembly site. “It was a GUR operation, an attack by Ukrainian drones on a company assembling Shahed drones. Significant damage was inflicted on the site,” said this source, without specifying whether the attack was launched from Russian territory or Ukrainian.
The other targeted site, in Nizhnekamsk, is a major oil refinery. According to local authorities, the drone was neutralized by an electronic jamming system and its fall caused no injuries or damage. Drone attacks targeting Russian energy sites have increased in recent months, causing major fires, particularly in refineries.
kyiv had promised to bring the fighting to Russian soil in retaliation for the numerous bombings of its territory. Russia intensified its strikes on Ukrainian energy networks in the spring, leading to electricity cuts and rationing which affected hundreds of thousands of civilians.
