A Russian factory was hit by a drone 1,000 kilometers from the border

According to AFP and the official Russian press service, an industrial site in the Russian region of Tatarstan, 1,100 kilometers from the Ukrainian border, was targeted by a Ukrainian drone strike.

A drone strike targeted an industrial site in Tatarstan on Tuesday (April 2) and injured two people, officials in the Russian region, more than 1,000 kilometers from Ukraine, said.

A source in the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, interviewed by AFP, confirmed that it was “an operation by GUR”, the Ukrainian military intelligence agency responsible for several such attacks in the past against Russian factories or refineries.

Injuries but no “serious damage”.

Russia, which has been bombing Ukrainian cities daily for two years, faces strikes from across its border from Ukraine, but it also faces organized operations on Russian territory. Russian security services (FSB) have in recent weeks stepped up arrests of Russian nationals accused of preparing attacks on behalf of Kyiv or anti-Kremlin organizations fighting on the Ukrainian side.

“This morning an aerial drone attack was carried out on Tatarstan factories located in Yelabuga and Nizhnekamsk,” the news service of Tatarstan President Rustam Minnikano said in a statement on Telegram.

The attack “did not cause serious damage and did not disrupt the company's technical process,” the press release assured, without specifying which factories were targeted.

“In Yelapuga, unfortunately some people have been injured,” he stressed.

According to the SEZ News Service, the Alabuga Special Economic Zone (SEZ), located about ten kilometers from the town of Yelabuga, was targeted at 02:45 GMT, injuring two people. The area is home to factories and companies that specialize in chemicals, mechanics and metal processing.

Collection of Iranian drones, oil refinery…

According to a Ukrainian defense ministry source interviewed by AFP, the strike targeted a drone assembly site. “This is a GUR operation, an attack by Ukrainian drones on a company that assembles Shahed drones. There was significant damage to the site,” the source said, without specifying whether the attack was launched from Russian or Ukrainian territory.

The other target site, Nizhnekamsk, is a large oil refinery. According to local authorities, the drone was neutralized by an electronic jamming system and no injuries or damage were caused by its fall. Drone attacks targeting Russian energy sites have increased in recent months, causing major fires, particularly at refineries.

Kyiv has vowed to bring the fight to Russian soil in retaliation for multiple bombings on its territory. Russia intensified strikes on Ukrainian energy networks in the spring, leading to electricity cuts and rationing that affected hundreds of thousands of civilians.