Moscow claims 531 drones downed; Lipetsk’s governor denies a major industrial fire Fires have been reported at two industrial sites in Russia, including the country’s largest steel plant, according to media reports, following a wave of Ukrainian drone attacks that Moscow said involved hundreds of drones. Ukrainian news outlet the Kyiv Post, citing several Russian and Ukrainian social media channels, reported that Ukraine’s armed forces launched attacks overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday on the Novolipetsk Steel Plant in the Lipetsk region of western Russia, the country’s largest such facility. A chemical plant in the neighboring Russian region of Tula was also reportedly targeted, with images posted to social media purporting to show flames and smoke at both sites. The governor of the Lipetsk region, Igor Artamonov, said on social media that 45 drones were shot down over the region, adding that debris shattered windows in an apartment building and that two drones crashed near residential areas. Artamonov dismissed reports of a major fire at an industrial facility as “untrue,” adding that drone debris fell among trees and sparked a fire “that has now been contained.” The governor of the Tula region, Dmitry Milyaev, said early on Wednesday morning that Russian air defense units were working to “repel a massive attack by Ukrainian drones,” adding that 64 Ukrainian drones were destroyed by Russian air defenses. He said that infrastructure in an industrial zone in the city of Novomoskovsk was damaged, as well as several homes in the area. Russia’s defense ministry said that 531 Ukrainian drones were destroyed between 8 p.m. and 8 a.m. Moscow time across a number of regions in the country, including Lipetsk, Tula, Voronezh, Belgorod, Rostov, Smolensk and the Moscow region. Since Moscow launched its 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Kyiv has regularly targeted industrial and military infrastructure in Russia as part of its effort to blunt the Kremlin’s ability to wage war.
