Ukraine's long-range drone attacks have frequently targeted military bases and oil refinery and energy sites of late, and more recently warehouses of major Russian online retailer Wildberries - but on Saturday a new target has been added: space facilities.
Ukrainian forces have touted that they've struck the Progress Rocket and Space Center in Russia's Samara region. The facility focuses on the manufacturing and operation of space launch vehicles.
Illustrative: Baikonur Cosmodrome, Space.com/NASAUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on X that Ukraine hit the space manufacturing center with FP-5 Flamingo cruise missiles - among the largest in Ukraine's arsenal, and which are domestically developed and produced.
He said it was necessary to target Russian space agency Roscosmos as among Russia's "key enterprises" - and that the targeted site was also involved in "electronics production" connected to military operations.
Other sites targeted in the fresh wave of attacks included Savasleyka air base in the Nizhny Novgorod region, which hosts aircraft used to attack Ukraine, as well as an oil facility in Ust-Luga, which lies close to the Estonian border.
"Our plan of long-range sanctions against Russia for this war is being implemented, and it is important that Russia’s war potential be reduced," Zelensky stated.
Ukrainian national media offered this as a backgrounder:
The “Progress” Rocket and Space Center is one of the key enterprises in the Russian Federation’s rocket and space industry, producing
