Ukraine’s latest strikes on Russia hit major gas plant and satellite centres

Ukrainian forces struck a major natural gas processing plant and two key satellite communications centres in their latest night-time attack on Russia, Ukraine’s General Staff said.

The operation was part of Ukraine’s aerial campaign targeting energy facilities and military industries that has intensified as Kyiv builds bigger and better long-range weapons to defeat Russia’s all-out invasion, now in its fifth year.

The overnight attack hit the Orenburg gas processing plant, which is part of a complex that also houses the only helium plant in Russia, the General Staff said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app on Wednesday.

The attack set the complex on fire, it said.

Orenburg is located more than 1,200 kilometres (750 miles) behind the front line that snakes along eastern and southern Ukraine, it said.

The plant is one of the largest gas complexes in the world, according to the General Staff.

It produces helium, used in liquid-fuel rocket engines and guidance systems, and ethane, a key component in producing solid rocket fuel and gunpowder, among other things, it added.

It was not possible to independently verify the General Staff’s report, and Russian officials made no immediate comment.

The Ukrainian statement did not say whether the military used drones or missiles in the assault, but drones have recently been used to strike Moscow and St Petersburg.

Overnight attacks also struck two satellite communication centres used by the Russian military, according to the General Staff.

One was the Dubna Space Communications Centre near Moscow, which it described as the largest ground-based satellite communications complex in Russia, and the other was in the Vladimir region east of the Russian capital.

Ukraine has also recently focused its drone and missile attacks on Crimea, aiming to cut off the vital Russian-held peninsula, and overnight drone strikes knocked out power in Sevastopol, Mikhail Razvozhayev, the city’s Moscow-installed governor, said on Wednesday.

Ukraine is trying to disrupt military supply lines in Crimea and strike the peninsula’s power grid at the height of the summer tourist season.

Kyiv hopes the campaign will embarrass Russian President Vladimir Putin and increase public pressure on him to end the war, according to Western analysts.

Crimea sits in a strategic location on the Black Sea.

It has naval bases and also provides an important supply line to Russian forces inside Ukraine.

Ukraine’s Security Service said on Wednesday it struck two military airfields and destroyed missile systems in Crimea.

Russian forces shot down 323 Ukrainian drones overnight, Russia’s Defence Ministry said.

Ukraine’s air force, meanwhile, said Russia launched 101 long-range attack drones overnight.