Ukraine strikes Russian rocket factory and airbase with Flamingo cruise missiles deep inside Russia

The strikes

Ukrainian forces struck two targets deep inside Russia on Saturday, 15 August, using domestically produced Flamingo cruise missiles. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed the attacks on social media, saying the Progress Rocket Space Center in the Samara region, approximately 900 kilometers from the Ukrainian border, was hit, along with the Savasleyka air base in the Nizhny Novgorod region, about 700 kilometers from Ukraine. Ukraine's General Staff reported direct hits and fires at both sites. The Savasleyka base hosts combat aircraft used to attack Ukraine, according to Zelenskyy.

It is important that Russia's war potential be reduced. Peace is needed, and this must be evident in Russia - through concrete damage to specific facilities.

The Progress center and Russia's space program

The Progress center operates under Russia's space agency Roscosmos and is one of Russia's most important rocket manufacturing facilities. It assembles the Soyuz-2 vehicle, the workhorse of Russia's launch fleet, as well as the newer Soyuz-5 rocket, and builds military satellites. Of the more than 120 Russian rocket launches since 2020, more than 85 percent have involved the Soyuz-2 family. Even before the attack, Russian space officials said demand for Soyuz rockets was exceeding production capacity by 30 to 50 percent for the period from 2027 to 2030. According to Ukraine's General Staff, the Samara plant produces rockets used to launch satellites for the Rassvet broadband network, which Russia is developing as an alternative to SpaceX's Starlink. Starlink operates in Ukraine but not in Russia, giving Kyiv an advantage in drone operations and battlefield communications. Open-source reports indicated a missile struck a building housing a clean room for avionics, though the extent of damage remained unclear.

Russian confirmation and casualties

Ivan Noskov, head of Samara city, said air defense forces repelled a "massive" missile attack with "localized damage" to industrial infrastructure, and that medical assistance was provided to those injured. Samara's regional governor Vyacheslav Fedorishchev reported overnight that a missile struck an unidentified industrial facility, and seven hours later, at around 12:15 local time, said emergency services were still dealing with the aftermath. OSINT analysis by the publication Astra confirmed that a workshop belonging to the rocket center or an adjacent aircraft plant was burning in Samara. Authorities in Nizhny Novgorod did not confirm the airfield strike. Russia's Defense Ministry said Saturday it had shot down 598 Ukrainian drones over 19 Russian regions, the Black and Azov Seas, and annexed Crimea. In the Moscow region, Governor Andrey Vorobyov said a Ukrainian drone hit a private home in Shatura, wounding two people including a nine-year-old child.

Flamingo missiles and long-range escalation

The Flamingo, designated FP-5, was developed by the Ukraine-based defense group Fire Point and has a range of up to 3,000 kilometers, according to n-tv. Ukraine has produced the missile since last year and has previously used it against energy infrastructure and military production facilities. Ukraine has sharply increased long-range strikes this year, launching three times as many in July as in January, according to ACLED, an independent conflict monitor. Zelenskyy also said a long-range strike damaged an oil facility in Ust-Luga, in the Leningrad region. Separately, a Russian strike on an apartment block in Marhanets, in southeastern Ukraine, killed a three-month-old baby and wounded 11 people, local officials said.