Ukrainian forces struck a major natural gas processing plant and two key satellite communications centres in Russia during overnight attacks, Ukraine’s General Staff said on Wednesday, as Kyiv intensifies its long-range campaign against Russian energy and military infrastructure.
The operation forms part of Ukraine’s broader strategy of targeting facilities linked to Russia’s war effort while developing increasingly sophisticated long-range weapons to counter Moscow’s full-scale invasion, now in its fifth year.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia has responded by redeploying some air-defence systems from various regions to Moscow and the Kerch Bridge in occupied Crimea, a vital transport route used to supply Russian troops. The bridge links the Crimean Peninsula to mainland Russia.
“It is important that as many Russians as possible come to understand that it is the Russian leadership’s rejection of diplomacy that is prolonging the war,” Zelenskyy wrote on X.
Zelenskyy has accepted an unconditional ceasefire proposed by US President Donald Trump, while Russian President Vladimir Putin has so far rejected it.
According to the General Staff, the overnight operation targeted the Orenburg Gas Processing Plant, part of a vast industrial complex that also contains Russia’s only helium production facility. The attack reportedly triggered a fire at the site.
Located in the southern Urals near the Kazakh border, Orenburg lies more than 1,200 kilometres from the front lines in eastern and southern Ukraine.
Ukraine described the facility as one of the largest gas-processing complexes in the world. It produces helium, used in liquid-fuel rocket engines and guidance systems, and ethane, a key ingredient in the production of solid rocket fuel and gunpowder.
The General Staff also said Ukrainian forces struck two satellite communications centres used by the Russian military. One target was the Dubna Space Communications Centre near Moscow, described as Russia’s largest ground-based satellite communications complex, while the second was located in the Vladimir region east of the capital.
The military did not specify whether drones or missiles were used in the attacks. Russian officials did not immediately comment, and the claims could not be independently verified.
According to the General Staff, the overnight operation targeted the Orenburg Gas Processing Plant, part of a vast industrial complex that also contains Russia’s only helium production facility. The attack reportedly triggered a fire at the site.
Located in the southern Urals near the Kazakh border, Orenburg lies more than 1,200 kilometres from the front lines in eastern and southern Ukraine.
Ukraine described the facility as one of the largest gas-processing complexes in the world. It produces helium, used in liquid-fuel rocket engines and guidance systems, and ethane, a key ingredient in the production of solid rocket fuel and gunpowder.
The General Staff also said Ukrainian forces struck two satellite communications centres used by the Russian military. One target was the Dubna Space Communications Centre near Moscow, described as Russia’s largest ground-based satellite communications complex, while the second was located in the Vladimir region east of the capital.
The military did not specify whether drones or missiles were used in the attacks. Russian officials did not immediately comment, and the claims could not be independently verified.
In recent months, Ukraine has increasingly focused its drone and missile campaign on Crimea, seeking to isolate the strategically important peninsula and disrupt Russian military logistics.
Overnight drone attacks caused power outages in Sevastopol, according to the city’s Moscow-installed governor, Mikhail Razvozhayev.
Russia annexed Crimea in 2014. The peninsula hosts key naval facilities and serves as an important supply corridor for Russian forces operating in Ukraine.
Zelenskyy recently claimed that Ukrainian strikes destroyed more than 60,000 tonnes of Russian ammunition at a Baltic Fleet arsenal near St Petersburg.
Western analysts say Ukraine hopes that sustained attacks on Crimea’s infrastructure and supply routes, particularly during the peak summer tourist season, will increase domestic pressure on Putin and undermine confidence in Russian control of the peninsula.
Ukraine’s Security Service also said on Wednesday that it had struck two military airfields in Crimea and destroyed missile systems stationed there.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said its air defences intercepted 323 Ukrainian drones overnight.
In Russia’s Nizhny Novgorod region, east of Moscow, a Ukrainian drone strike killed two people and injured two others, regional Governor Gleb Nikitin said. Another person was killed in a separate drone attack in the Belgorod region bordering Ukraine, local authorities reported.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 101 long-range attack drones overnight.
Russian drone strikes on the northeastern Ukrainian city of Balakliia killed a 56-year-old woman, according to Kharkiv regional governor Oleh Syniehubov.
In the Sumy region, a 57-year-old tram driver was killed when a Russian guided aerial bomb struck the outskirts of the regional capital, said regional military administration head Oleh Hryhorov.