Ukraine Strikes Russia's Largest Steel Plant, Chemical Factory Amid 531 Drone Claims

Ukraine reportedly struck Russia ’s largest steel plant and a major chemical factory overnight on Oct. 27-28, with fires reported at both facilities as Russian authorities reported a massive wave of drone attacks across several regions.

On the night of Oct. 27-28, a missile alert was declared in Russia’s Lipetsk Oblast.

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“The enemy is attempting to attack the industrial infrastructure of Lipetsk. A massive attack is currently being repelled,” the Russian Telegram channel Radar Lipetsk reported .

Later, the channel reported a fire at the Novolipetsk Steel Plant (NLMK). The Ukrainian monitoring channel Exilenova+ also confirmed a blaze on the facility’s premises, suggesting that a Russian Pantsir air defense system may have failed to intercept an incoming aerial target.

Igor Artamonov, the governor of the Lipetsk Oblast, later said on Telegram that 45 drones had been shot down over the region overnight.

According to him, drone debris shattered windows in an apartment building in Lipetsk. In one of the region’s gardening cooperatives, a drone fell onto a garden plot to a house. Another drone fell near a residential building in the Dankovsky District.

“Reports are circulating on social media and messaging apps a major fire at an industrial facility. This is not true. Drone debris fell in a wooded area, sparking a fire that has now been contained,” Artamonov said.

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NLMK is Russia’s largest steel plant and ranks among the 20 largest steel producers in the world. The facility has an annual production capacity of 17 million tons of liquid steel. It was previously targeted in an attack on July.

Chemical plant reportedly targeted in Tula Oblast

Early on the morning of Oct. 28, Tula Oblast Governor Dmitry Milyaev also declared a missile alert. He later reported that the region had come under a massive attack by Ukrainian drones.

“As a result of falling drone debris in Novomoskovsk, damage has been recorded to an apartment building, private homes, and infrastructure in the adjacent industrial zone,” Milyaev wrote .

He added that information possible casualties and the extent of the damage was still being clarified.

Although Milyaev did not identify the specific industrial facility targeted, he said that laboratories from the Tula Oblast state institution Priroda (Nature) and the regional office of Rospotrebnadzor, Russia’s federal consumer rights protection agency, had been dispatched to Novomoskovsk.

According to Exilenova+ and the Russian outlet Astra, the target of the latest attack in Novomoskovsk was the Azot chemical plant, which belongs to the EuroChem group and is one of Russia’s largest producers of nitrogen fertilizers.

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The facility manufactures ammonia, ammonium nitrate, urea, and methanol. These substances are used in various industrial applications, including the production of munitions.

Astra previously reported an attack on the Azot chemical plant on June 26. The facility had also caught fire following a Ukrainian attack on the night of June 14.

Moscow claims 531 Ukrainian drones intercepted overnight

The Russian Ministry of Defense reported that air defense forces intercepted and destroyed 531 Ukrainian fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) overnight, between 8 p.m. Moscow time on Oct. 27 and 8 a.m. on Oct. 28.

According to the ministry, the drones were intercepted over the Belgorod, Bryansk, Voronezh, Kaluga, Kursk, Lipetsk, Oryol, Rostov, Ryazan, Smolensk, Tambov, and Tula Oblasts, as well as Moscow Oblast.

The Ukrainian side has not commented on its involvement in the reported strikes as of publication.

Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian industrial facilities

On Oct. 24, Ukrainian drones attacked Tolyattikauchuk , a major petrochemical enterprise in Russia’s Samara region.

A fire broke out at the plant, which is owned by Tatneft, and authorities closed nearby streets. The Tolyatti combined heat and power plant (CHP) was also struck, resulting in disruptions to electricity and water supplies for local residents.

Tolyattikauchuk produces monomers, hydrocarbon fractions, and gasoline additives. Its synthetic rubber products are also used in the production of solid rocket fuel for tactical and ballistic missiles.