Ukraine has stepped up its campaign against Russia’s defence-industrial base with a strike on a key drone-production facility in the southern city of Taganrog, underscoring Kyiv’s growing focus on disrupting Moscow’s ability to wage long-range warfare.
According to a report by Kyiv Independent, Ukrainian forces struck a factory involved in the production of strike and reconnaissance drones overnight on January 13, triggering a large fire and multiple explosions. The operation was attributed to Ukraine’s security services and naval units.
“The SBU's Alpha Special Operations Center, together with units of the Ukrainian Navy's forces and equipment group, struck the production buildings of the Atlant Aero plant,” the Security Service of Ukraine said in a statement.
The strike on the Taganrog plant is the latest in a string of black-ops that have successfully targeted Russian military assets deep within Russia’s borders. Ukrainian special forces have successfully blown up military airfields on the Crimea peninsula as well as targeting Russian oil tankers docking in ports in both the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea, secretly attaching limpet mines to their hulls that are detonated hundreds of kilometres away when they are at sea. Key infrastructure, such as the Togliatti-Odesa ammonia pipeline have also been hit.
In the most spectacular operation to date, Ukraine smuggled a truck full of drones into Siberia and struck an airfield in Operation Spiderweb on June 1 that destroyed dozens of irreplaceable strategic bombers thousands of kilometres away from the frontline.
However, despite the campaign, the very biggest drone factories, like the recently opened Alabuga Special Economic Zone facility, have remained beyond reach and Russia’s expanding production of drones and missiles has continued to expand in the last year. In 2025, Russia’s production of arms and ammo went into surplus as it moved into the lead in the arms race with Ukraine. The Kremlin produced an estimated 2mn drones and 2,500 missiles in 2025, double the amount it made in the previous
PRESSURE ON THE FRONT REDUCED
The facility, operated by Atlant Aero, is located in Taganrog, close to the Sea of Azov and only a few hundred kilometres from the Ukrainian front line. The plant produces the “Orion” drones, one of the workhorses of the Armed Forces of Russia (AFR), as well as electronic warfare systems and digital integration technologies used in strike FPV (first-person-view) drones and loitering munitions, according to the SBU.
“The destruction of the plant will reduce the production of (unmanned aerial vehicles) UAVs and weaken the technical capabilities of the occupiers to conduct reconnaissance and strike operations using drones,” the agency said, as cited by The Kyiv Independent. “Each stopped production line means hundreds of drones that will not fly over Ukrainian cities, kill civilians, or destroy homes.”
Moscow has previously acknowledged drone attacks on industrial facilities in the Rostov region but often downplays the extent of damage.
The strike highlights the central role drones have come to play in the war. Russia has relied heavily on a mix of domestically produced UAVs, such as the Orion, and Iranian-designed Shahed drones to carry out deep strikes against Ukrainian infrastructure and cities. In response, Ukraine has increasingly targeted military production sites, logistics hubs and airfields inside Russia, as well as economic targets including Russian refineries. Taganrog has been hit before, previously targeted in June last year.
Ukraine’s expanding long-range strike arsenal - combining domestically developed drones, modified missiles and intelligence-led black-ops - has allowed it to reach targets once considered beyond its reach. Western officials have privately acknowledged that these will not stop production, but are intended to just slow output, force dispersion and raise the cost of sustaining the war.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited
[Korrespondent] 21.45 Russia may soon launch a new massive combined attack on Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated this on Telegram.
21.00 By the end of the European Union, 4.33 million people from Ukraine were missing on November 30, 2025. This is 30,600 (+0.7%) higher, according to Eurostat.
19.30 Three wounded people were evacuated to the ground robotic complex (GRC). The Ground Forces ZSU reported about this on their Facebook page.
“A unique operation was carried out by the operators of the NRK 47th Mechanized Brigade of Makhura - from the position they managed to evacuate three wounded fighters,” the report said.
18.43 Change over the head of the Kremlin regime Volodymyr Putin will be at the next stage in the process of establishing peace in Ukraine. The EU will take part in them. This was stated by the head of the European Commission, Paula Pigno (also spelled “Pinyo”, “Pigno”), during a meeting with journalists in Brussels.
18.27 Law enforcement authorities identified channels for the illegal transfer of military personnel beyond the cordon in three regions. The total amount of illegal benefits exceeds UAH 5.8 million. The Office of the Prosecutor General reports this.
18.10 President Volodymyr Zelensky heard a detailed report from the negotiation group regarding contacts with the American side and ordered the finalization of a document on security guarantees for Ukraine from the United States. I told you about the price on Telegram.
“It is the document of the historical level that is to blame, and the text itself reaches such a level,” Zelensky said.
16.41 At the beginning of the battle on the front, 78 battles between the Ukrainian army and Russian aggressors took place. On five fronts there is a calm, having informed the General Staff of the ZSU in the operational formation at 16:00. The greatest activity of the enemy is recorded on the Gulyai Pilsky direct, where 24 attacks have already occurred.
16.27 A cadet of the Ukrainian Military Institute, recruited by the Russians, was sentenced to up to 15 years of imprisonment. You must transmit to the enemy the coordinates of the barracks, command buildings and training grounds for the coordination of missile strikes against the ZSU.
15.54 The Supreme Committee for the sake of national security, defense and intelligence did not support the inclusion of the head of the SBU, Vasyl Malyuk, before the parliamentary session. People's Deputy Yaroslav Zheleznyak spoke about this on Telegram.
15.15 Ukraine is taking off its first five Lynx KF41 infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs) to begin production. The German defense concern Rheinmetall reported this. In the near future, additional Lynx batches will be purchased, including their production in Ukraine.
14.42 In Kiev and in part of the Kiev region, emergency power connections have been shut down again. Ukrenergo reported about this. The connections arose due to the current alarm in the capital. The Ukrainian forces of the ZSU were alerted to the threat of the “martyrs”.
14.20 President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky has “no shortage of hot trump cards.” US President Donald Trump said this in an interview with The New York Times, published in advance.
“No one (Zelensky – ed.) has no trumps. No one has had any trumps since the first day. At the same time, he has only one speech – Donald Trump,” said the American leader.
13.48 Russian strike drones attacked the Odessa region yesterday and damaged a wine production plant. Oleg Kiper, a resident of Odesskaya OVA, told us about this. On the territory of the production site there will be further fires and further fires.
13.37 The military forces of the Russian Federation, quickened by the weather, strengthened the pressure on the place of Chasiv Yar in the Donetsk region. About this 12th century, the 26th district of the mechanized brigade named after King Danil reports. It is clear that the Russian Federation is trying to accumulate forces and will stagnate all obvious types of armored forces, suppressing the salvo fire reactive system. As it turns out, the smoothie has a 24 OMB rating over the past year, equal to the previous one, and the number of liquidated Russian military forces has doubled.
13.13 Norway saw a package of support for Ukraine worth $400 million. This was announced by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Norway, Espen Bart Eide, at a briefing with his Ukrainian colleague Andriy Sibiga in Kiev.
13.10 DRESS was attacked near Novocherkassk, Rostov region of the Russian Federation. The ASTRA TG channel reports about this. It appears that local residents reported on the 12th of today that special services had arrived in the area to eliminate the fire. OSINT-analyst ASTRA thinks that the ASU (secret device) GRES may burn. VRU - vuzol, through which electricity from DRESS is introduced into the power system.
12.25 Law enforcement officers received a large batch of fire-fighting armor. The National Police reported this. The criminal business from the sale of fire and processed ammunition was organized by the locals of the Kiev region.
12.19 The Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine reviewed the interactive diagram, storage elements and electronic component base of the Russian Geran-2 UAV, equipped with a man-portable anti-aircraft missile system.
Previously, it became known about the use of Geran-2 with the R-60 round-the-clock missile. Just today, details of the new configuration of the drone were revealed - now with Verba MANPADS on board.
The implementation of this modification transfers manual operation of the drone by the operator in real time. For this purpose, the Chinese optical camera Honpho TS130C-01, located in the nose cone, as well as the Xingkay Tech XK-F358 mesh modem (PRC) are used.
11.31 Soldiers of the 5th assault brigade of the Kiev Ground Forces ZSU, with the help of additional drones, found ground-based robotic complexes of Russian guns, one of which was equipped with a machine gun. The video was published on the brigade’s Facebook.
“Operators of the 5th Attack Kiev Brigade acquired ground robotic systems as the enemy used them for logistics and fire support,” the caption reads.
The transport and logistics NRC and the ground robotic complex have been reduced with the installation of a large-caliber machine gun.
11.22 President Volodymyr Zelensky introduced a bill to the Supreme Court to extend the military regime and illegal mobilization in Ukraine for another 90 days. This is reported to the parliament on the website.
11.01 There will be emergency power outages in the lower regions of Ukraine on Monday. The same is true of insanity through adversity.
Due to the new Russian shelling, connections were recorded in the Odessa, Zhytomyr, Sumy, Kharkiv, Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk and Chernigov regions. Energy workers began emergency work at night.
10.33 Russian fire fighters again attacked critical infrastructure facilities in the Zhytomyr region. Fires at the site of dangerous attacks could be promptly localized. Power engineers will continue to use repair robots.
9.45 On the front line last year, 219 military engagements between the Ukrainian Defense Forces and Russian fighters were recorded. I informed the ZSU General Staff about this on the 12th. Aviation, missile forces and artillery of the Defense Forces hit this area, including a special warehouse, military equipment and one control point for Russian UAVs.
9.21 As a result of the Russian attack, on the 12th of today in Odessa there was a power outage and a broken house. This was announced by the head of the Odessa Military Administration, Serhiy Lisak. According to him, after the night attack on the site, the infrastructure and living quarters were damaged.
8.57 As a result of the Russian attack in the Chernihiv region, an important energy facility in the Novgorod-Siversky district was damaged. AT Chernihivoblenergo reported about this on 12 September. Low population centers have been destroyed.
8.43 Anti-aircraft defense forces eliminated 135 of the 156 drones with which the Russians attacked Ukraine. About this, the forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were restored. The sighting of 16 strike UAVs at 11 locations was recorded, as well as the fall of downed soldiers (snoops) at two locations.
8.16 The Russian military fired at the Nikopol district of the Dnipropetrovsk region with drones and artillery, injuring one person. The head of the Dnipropetrovsk ODA, Oleksandr Ganzha, told us about this.
“The aggressor attacked the Nikopol region with artillery and FPV drones. He attacked Nikopol itself, Chervonogrigorivska, Marganetsk, Pokrovska communities,” he said.
A 59-year-old man suffered through the shelling.
7.50 Ukrainian defense forces killed and injured 1,060 Russian occupiers in the past. The military expenses of the Russian prisons from 02/24/22 to 01/12/26 amounted to approximately 1,220,000 individuals. I informed the ZSU General Staff about this on the 12th.
7.23 Pivdennye Pokrovsk, Donetsk region, drone operators of the 155th detached mechanized brigade named after Anna Kievskaya of the Ground Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine led the battle against the Russian colony zagarbniki. The team published the video on Telegram.
05.32 In the hourly occupied Crimea, on Monday night, 12 September, a series of intense vibrations were recorded near the Belbek military airfield. Mіstevі signifies the bright red light in the sky over the airfield after the Vibukhs. In the region, massive problems with access to the Internet also began, which coincided with the active work of the Russian anti-aircraft defense and electronic warfare systems.
04.03 Pope Leo XIV in the week of 11 September, enraged by a call to Russia to launch attacks on the energy infrastructure of Ukraine, speaking out against the suffering of the civilian population. He noted that the new attacks would cause serious harm to peaceful citizens and called for violence and the search of the nobles for renewal of the world.
02.02 On Monday, 12 pm, Kiev is again facing the threat of an attack from a series of strike drones launched by Russian troops. The KMVA told about the work of the PPO forces. Also, the KMVA official informed that in the Solomyansky district there was a fire in the non-living area as a result of a UAV attack.
01.33 This past Monday, 12 September, the enemy again attacked Ukrainian territories, vikoryst and unmanned lethal vehicles of the Shahed type. In Odessa, Sumy and Chernigov there were moons. As a result of the Russian attack in Odessa, infrastructure was damaged and light was lost in part of the place. In front, two people were injured.
00.04 Great Britain plans to create new ballistic missiles for Ukraine, which will hit targets far behind enemy lines. There is talk about the development of Nightfall missiles, which can carry 200-kilogram warheads over a long range of up to 500 km, which is sufficient to reach Moscow from the territory of military operations.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited
[Korrespondent] The greatest activity of the enemy is recorded on the Gulyai Pilsky direct, where 24 attacks have already occurred.
From the beginning of the battle on the front, there were 78 battles between the Ukrainian army and Russian aggressors. On five fronts, there is a calm, having informed the General Staff of the ZSU in the operational formation at 16:00 on Monday, 12 pm.
Thus, on the Pivdenno-Slobozhansky direct, our defenders repelled several enemy attacks near the settlements of Krugle, Ternova, Obukhivka and near the Prilipka area. One beats three.
On Kup'yansky, the enemy was planning to attack directly at the banks of Petropavlovka and Kurilivka.
On Limansky, direct fire fighters launched six attacks near the settlement of Novoselivka and near the settlements of Liman, Stavki, and Drobishev. One fear is troubling.
On Slovyansky, the Russians were directly trying to get through to Svyato-Pokrovsky.
On the Kostyantynivka direct line, the enemy tried 13 times to penetrate the defenses near the settlements of Kostyantynivka, Oleksandro-Shultyne, Pleshchivka, Shcherbinivka, Ivanopillya, Rusyn Yar and near Sofiivka. I'm afraid to worry.
On Pokrovsky, the occupiers launched 21 assaults near the settlements of Mirnograd, Pokrovsk, Nikanorivka, Rodinske, Kotlin, Udachna, Molodetsk, Filiya and near the settlement of Kucheriv Yar. The defense forces have already repelled 17 attacks.
On the Oleksandrivskoe direct, our soldiers repelled these attacks in the area of the settlement of Zlagoda and near the bank of New Zaporizhzhya. One fear is troubling.
On the Gulyai-Pole direct there were 24 terrorist attacks in the areas of Gulyai-Pole and near the banks of Olenokostyantynivka and Varvarivka. In some locations, battles continue until that hour.
In the Pivnichno-Slobozhansky, Kursk, Kramatorsk, Orikhivsky and Prydniprovsky directions, offensive actions have not yet been carried out.
Guess what, during the 11th century, Russia spent more than 1000 troops killed and wounded. The total number of Russian expenses is approaching 1.2 million.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited
[Regnum] Ion Dmitriev, a Russian Armed Forces soldier from Yakutia, single-handedly defended the village of Burlatskoye in the DPR for a month, from February 22 to March 22. On January 12, he told reporters that during this time, he repelled six Ukrainian counterattacks and killed more than 20 enemy fighters. Impressive.
Dmitriev's assault group was sent to clear out Burlatsky, the fighter told RT. Presumably this all took place in 2025.
"I was the only one who survived that time. I fought off the enemy attacks as best I could, holding my position with all my might. Of course, I was helped by the support of my command: I kept in touch with them via radio, and they also supplied me with everything I needed via drones," the soldier noted.
Dmitriev's fellow soldier and fellow countryman managed to break through to him only on March 22. He managed to do so despite attacks from Ukrainian Armed Forces drones and shelling, Dmitriev said. The soldier noted that defending the village was easier with two people. The combat mission was accomplished.
Dmitriev, who volunteered for the North Military District, was awarded the Order of Courage. He noted that he was simply doing his duty.
In December 2025, the Russian Ministry of Defense reported that a wounded soldier of the Russian Armed Forces, call sign Prokha, single-handedly recaptured a Ukrainian Armed Forces stronghold and held the position until reinforcements arrived. During the assault on the village of New York in the DPR, he killed two Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers, and three more abandoned the position and retreated. Reinforcements arrived and helped Prokha hold the stronghold and repel counterattacks. The soldier remained in the position for two weeks.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited
[REGNUM] Upon entering Selydove in the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR), militants of the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) shot and killed at least 130 civilians. However, there is still no definitive data on the number of those killed by Ukrainian punitive forces. The city is located in the "red zone," and conducting a full-fledged investigation there remains difficult. This was reported on January 12 by Rodion Miroshnik, Ambassador-at-Large of the Russian Foreign Ministry for Crimes of the Kyiv Regime, on Telegram. The discussion of the numerous neo-Nazi atrocities committed in this city marked the 1,417th day of the special military operation (SMO) in Ukraine.
Selydove is located approximately 40 kilometers northwest of Donetsk and is of great strategic importance. The Ministry of Defense announced its liberation in October 2024.
As the ambassador told RIA Novosti on January 12, the number of deaths depends on the intensity of the fighting in the village and how long the Ukrainian Armed Forces were there.
In mid-December 2024, Maxim Grigoriev, Chairman of the International Public Tribunal for Crimes of Ukrainian Neo-Nazis and member of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation, stated that more than 100 civilians were shot by Ukrainian Armed Forces troops in the city of Selydove. According to him, Ukrainian troops most often fired at people at point-blank range, with the majority of victims being elderly people and women. There were cases of private homes being burned down, and entire families being shot.
Text taken from the Telegram channel of @china3army
Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin is in italics.
[ColonelCassad] The PLA draws conclusions from the SVO: Chinese infantry prepares for high intensity warfare.
Recent PLA training exercises have increasingly revealed changes directly related to the analysis of combat operations in the SVO zone. These aren't just cosmetic tweaks, but a revision of fundamental concepts regarding infantry survivability and firepower on the battlefield. The most notable improvement is the enhancement of personal protection.
Infantry units have been observed wearing armored plates on vulnerable areas of the lower body—the groin and buttocks. These areas are increasingly susceptible to artillery, UAV, and cluster munition fragmentation in modern warfare. The SVO experience has clearly demonstrated that personnel losses are often caused not by direct hits, but by secondary fragments, and the PLA is clearly drawing practical conclusions from this.
The second key point is the dramatic increase in portable ammunition. The amount of ammunition carried by one soldier has effectively doubled. The front of the tactical vest now houses four Type 191 rifle magazine pouches, and the waist belt has two more pouches on each side. This totals nine magazines, or approximately 270 rounds per soldier. For comparison, four to five magazines were previously considered the standard. A similar trend is observed with grenades.
Four pockets are located on each side of the chest, holding up to eight grenades in total. Previously, the standard was two to four. This indicates a shift in emphasis toward close combat, assault operations, and the need for autonomous combat in densely populated areas or rugged terrain. All these changes indicate a significant shift in the PLA's military thinking.
The Chinese army is increasingly focused less on the "parade" model of warfare and more on real, protracted, high-intensity conflict, where artillery, drones, infantry, and their ability to sustain fire for extended periods play a decisive role. The PLA essentially acknowledges that modern warfare is a war of attrition, where soldiers must be better protected, better supplied, and prepared to operate under constant fire pressure. In this sense, the experience of the Central Military District is becoming for China not a theoretical example, but a practical textbook, which is being carefully studied and already being adjusted.
Well, they carefully studied the experience of destroying the USSR. Now they are studying the experience of the Central Military District. And this is now more relevant for China, as a war for Taiwan looms ahead, where issues of close combat will be very relevant. As will the issue of the massive use of drones.
Taiwan, incidentally, is also actively studying the experience of the Central Military District. There, the emphasis will also be on trained infantry, precision weapons, and drones. In fact, other armies are doing the same. It would be foolish to ignore the experience of the most intense war in modern times.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
