Drones attacked Sterlitamak in Russia’s Bashkortostan on 29 October, and smoke rose over the Bashkir Soda Company, Russian Telegram channel Astra reported, citing its open-source analysis. The city’s mayor admitted debris fell on an unnamed plant.

Ukraine’s long-range drones keep reaching deeper into the industries that feed Russia’s war. In the past five days, a nitric acid maker in Tula Oblast, a rocket-fuel rubber plant in Samara Oblast, and a titanium plant in the Urals came under attack. The Sterlitamak plant lies about 1,310 km from the front line. Drones also attacked it on 27 August, Astra says. Ukraine has not commented.

The plant is Russia’s only maker of a compound for armor fibers

The Bashkir Soda Company is Russia’s largest producer of soda ash and baking soda, and part of the Roskhim chemical holding. It is also Russia’s only maker of terephthaloyl chloride, The Insider reported, citing the company’s website. The website also mentions deliveries to the defense industry.

The compound goes into aramid fibers, Kevlar-type materials used for body armor, helmets, and armor for military vehicles and aircraft, Astra said. Astra also says the company sits on the Russian Industry and Trade Ministry’s closed register of defense enterprises.

The attack began around dawn. Ukrainian Telegram channel Exilenova+ posted footage of a drone over the city. Supernova+, another Ukrainian monitoring channel, posted the plant’s coordinates and photos of smoke. Russia’s aviation agency restricted flights at the airport of Ufa, the region’s capital. Pro-Ukrainian X account Maks 26 shared footage of the attacks on Sterlitamak and Luhansk. It also suggested that Sterlitamak’s Syntez-Kauchuk rubber plant may have been the target, and claimed a fire at the Marinovka air base in Volgograd Oblast.

After the attack by Ukrainian drones, a fire was recorded in the area of ​​the Marinovka military airfield in the Volgograd region.

The Defense Forces also attacked Bashkortostan. Bashkir Soda Company in Sterlitamak or Syntez-Kauchuk JSC could have been hit.

In… pic.twitter.com/SIJ1vR8395

— MAKS 26 (@Maks_NAFO_FELLA) October 29, 2026

Mayor Emil Shaimardanov claimed air defenses downed all seven drones over the city. An earlier version of his post, quoted by Russian state news agency TASS, said eight.

“Debris fell on the territory of one of the enterprises. Minor damage was caused, the plant is operating normally,” Shaimardanov claimed.

He did not name the plant.

The Insider said NASA’s FIRMS fire map confirmed a fire at the plant. But the map shows only the weak heat source its satellites record there almost every night, the last time hours before the drones came, and nothing new after the attack.

Moscow and other regions under attack

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin claimed that 613 drones flew toward the Moscow region overnight, that most were downed on the far approaches, and that 231 were downed on approach to the capital. Russia’s aviation agency restricted flights at Vnukovo, Domodedovo, and Zhukovsky airports. Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed it downed 1,214 drones over 19 regions overnight.

Ukraine’s General Staff said its forces hit a depot of Geran drones, Russia’s version of the Iranian Shahed, along with a drone launch site and a fuel depot near Navlya in Bryansk Oblast, about 70 km from the Ukrainian border. The Atesh partisan movement reported a loud explosion near Oryol’s airfield and a large fire in Lipetsk, about 285 km from the border.

Explosions in occupied Crimea, power cuts in occupied Luhansk

Subscribers of Crimean monitoring channel Krymsky Veter reported drones and then a strong explosion with Russian air defenses firing in Krasnoperekopsk, in occupied Crimea, about 95 km from the front line.

In occupied Luhansk, about 105 km from the front line, residents reported another attack on Lugacom, the occupation’s mobile operator, and internet outages followed, Exilenova+ said. The channel named only Lugacom. The operator sits in the seized Ukrtelecom building. Exilenova+ also posted footage of a fire in the city.

pic.twitter.com/Pihyr8Y0EL

— Exilenova+ (@Exilenova_plus) October 29, 2026

Leonid Pasechnik, the Russian-installed head of the occupied part of Luhansk Oblast, claimed that 150,000 customers in six municipalities lost power after attacks on energy facilities.

Ukrainian drones blew up a Russian ammunition depot near Khrustalnyi in occupied Luhansk Oblast overnight on 27 October, Ukrainian Telegram channel Exilenova+ reported. Drones also hit the oblast’s capital, Luhansk, for hours, and part of the city lost power. Russia’s occupation authorities have not commented.

Russia keeps pushing toward the last big Ukrainian-held cities in Donetsk Oblast. Its artillery there runs on shells kept in rear depots across occupied territory, and those depots sit within reach of Ukraine’s mid-range drones. Each depot lost behind the front pushes Russia to store and move its shells from farther back. That lengthens the supply runs Ukraine’s drones already hunt on the roads of occupied Ukraine.

Secondary detonations near Khrustalnyi lasted over an hour

The drone attack on occupied Luhansk Oblast went on for several hours, Exilenova+ said. Ukraine’s Defense Forces hit the depot near Khrustalnyi, and secondary detonations continued for more than an hour, the channel added. It posted night footage of a large fire glowing on the horizon.

An attack by strike drones has been ongoing for several hours in the occupied Luhansk region.

The Defence Forces have blown up an ammunition depot near the village of Khrustalnyi. Secondary detonations have been ongoing for over an hour. pic.twitter.com/yEGTgrfsm7

— Exilenova+ (@Exilenova_plus) October 26, 2026

Russia has occupied Khrustalnyi, formerly called Krasnyi Luch, since 2014. The city lies about 65 km southwest of Luhansk. It serves Russian troops as a rear and logistics hub.

Luhansk lost power as drones hit its former airfield

The attack on the city of Luhansk lasted more than four hours, Petro Andriushchenko, head of the Center for the Study of Occupation, said. Residents reported many explosions and fires in several districts, and the power went out. The main strike hit the city’s former airfield, he added. In October 2023, Ukraine’s ATACMS missiles destroyed Russian helicopters at air bases in occupied Luhansk and Berdiansk.

On Yandex Maps, the Russian online mapping service, the struck area near Luhansk airport is blurred, Andriushchenko noted. Yandex blurs military and critical infrastructure sites this way, he wrote.

Exilenova+ also reported a series of explosions in Luhansk. The oblast had been under a mass drone attack for an hour, with dozens of hits in different towns, Ukrainian Telegram channel DroneBomber wrote late on 26 October.

Neither side’s military has mentioned the attack on Luhansk Oblast. Ukraine’s General Staff left it out of its morning report. Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed it downed 222 drones over Russian regions, occupied Crimea, and the Black Sea, without listing Luhansk Oblast.

Pro-Russian local channels confirmed the attack from their side. A channel covering occupied Luhansk Oblast wrote that eyewitnesses saw a large fire and secondary detonations in Khrustalnyi. LIC, the news agency of Russia’s occupation administration in Luhansk Oblast, reported a series of powerful explosions over Luhansk and a visible glow.

The third drone night over occupied Luhansk Oblast in a week

Drones have now hit occupied Luhansk Oblast on three nights in seven days. On 21 October, they struck the seized telecom building in the city of Luhansk that houses the occupation’s mobile operator. Two nights later, strikes cut communications and power in part of the city.

Khrustalnyi itself burned on 12 October, when strikes hit a former motor depot housing Russian troops. Ukraine also hit an ammunition depot there in June 2022. Back then, the site supplied Russia’s offensive on Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk.

Blasts in Mariupol, Berdiansk, and Melitopol, and Russian claims from Bryansk

Occupied Mariupol heard two waves of explosions overnight, and the power went out after the attack, Andriushchenko also said. In occupied Berdiansk, several blasts near the Ekvator shopping center preceded a large fire, he added.

On the evening of 26 October, strike drones attacked occupied Melitopol in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, Exilenova+ said. Locals also reported FPV drones hitting targets in the city.

In Russia’s city of Bryansk, Governor Yegor Kovalchuk claimed a night drone attack injured six people and damaged three apartment blocks. He said a man also died when a drone-dropped explosive went off. Yevhen Balytskyi, the Russian-installed head of occupied Zaporizhzhia Oblast, claimed a drone hit a Simferopol–Moscow bus near Prymorsk, killing one passenger.

As the attacks began, Russian monitoring resources tracked up to 350 Ukrainian drones in the air, DroneBomber said. Most flew over Bryansk and Oryol oblasts, with more groups near Crimea, Novorossiysk, and occupied Luhansk Oblast.

Ukraine’s drones also weigh on Russia’s road to occupied Crimea. Truck traffic on the R-280 highway from Rostov Oblast has halved to about 1,000 a day because of drone attacks. Anatolii Tsurkin, who heads a carriers’ association set up in occupied Crimea, said so.

Kyiv set aside $113 million for the first phase of a program of middle-strike drones aimed at Russia’s rear. That makes nights like this one likely to keep coming for depots, airfields, and roads across occupied Ukraine.

Drone strikes disrupted communications and power in part of Russian-occupied Luhansk overnight on 23 October, Ukrainian monitoring channel Exilenova+ reported. It was the third night in four that drones went after communications in occupied eastern Ukraine. A pro-Russian local channel also showed a damaged factory, and the occupation authorities have stayed silent.

Ukraine's drones have spent months hitting what keeps Russia's occupation running, from fuel depots to supply lines and now communications.

Blasts before dawn, then outages

Explosions hit Luhansk before dawn, and the strikes probably targeted communications facilities, Exilenova+ said. Another Ukrainian monitoring channel, Supernova+, wrote that the city's TV tower came under attack. Exilenova+ posted night footage of the strikes.

The moment of arrival in Luhansk. Following the explosions, we are experiencing disruptions to communications and the electricity supply. pic.twitter.com/rNHXRJcVNt

— Exilenova+ (@Exilenova_plus) October 23, 2026

A drone attack damaged the building of the local telecom company, pro-Russian local channel Ogonyok Luhanska wrote on 23 October. It listed switches and servers among the damaged equipment and said the damage could explain landline outages and possible internet problems. The channel did not say whether the damage came from this attack or the one two nights earlier.

Strikes on local communications facilities in occupied Luhansk. pic.twitter.com/4Jz7aK7tKs

— Exilenova+ (@Exilenova_plus) October 23, 2026

By morning, water stopped flowing in parts of Luhansk and nearby villages, including Metalist and Tsvitni Pisky. A notice posted by local Telegram channel Luhansk Online cited unstable voltage at water facilities. The city's water utility later switched to backup phone numbers after its dispatch lines failed.

Third night in four

Overnight on 20 October, drones struck Ugletelecom, the occupation's telecom operator in Donetsk. A night later, they hit the seized Ukrtelecom building in Luhansk, which houses the occupation's mobile operator Lugacom. That strike disrupted the internet so badly that service centers across occupied Luhansk Oblast stopped accepting documents.

Silence from the occupation

The occupation authorities have not commented. Leonid Pasechnik, the Russian-installed head of occupied Luhansk Oblast, posted nothing about the attack. On 21 October, he claimed Kyiv was carrying out "terrorist strikes" on civilians. Russia's Defense Ministry claimed it downed 443 drones overnight over Russian regions, Crimea, and two seas, without mentioning Luhansk. The same night, Russia launched 176 drones at Ukraine, some from occupied Donetsk and from Hvardiiske in occupied Crimea, Krym.Realii reported, citing Ukraine's Air Force.

Ukraine's General Staff has not reported on the attack yet. After the previous strike on Luhansk, it said Ukrainian forces hit command posts of Russian units in the Luhansk area.

A pipeline-valve plant hit, too

Ogonyok Luhanska also posted daylight photos of the Marshal plant after what it called a "night arrival." They show a damaged workshop roof, and the channel wrote it had information that the drone hit inside the plant. The Luhansk Pipeline Valve Plant Marshal, registered in Ukraine in 1994, makes taps and valves at 13 Montazhna Street, according to Ukrainian state registry data published by VB.ua.

Earlier that morning, Luhansk Online reported restricted traffic on Montazhna Street between Brestska and Sukhodilska streets.

Ukraine has hit industrial sites in occupied Luhansk Oblast before. For example, in March, drones struck a plant in Alchevsk that made artillery shell casings.

Drones struck the seized Ukrtelecom building in occupied Luhansk overnight on 21 October, hitting the mobile operator Russia’s occupation authorities run there under the name “Lugacom,” Russian Telegram channel Astra and Ukrainian monitoring channels reported. The strike came a night after drones hit “Ugletelecom,” the occupation’s telecom operator in Donetsk, which reportedly runs on equipment seized from Ukrainian companies. Footage posted by Ukrainian monitors shows heavy fire damage inside the Luhansk building. Ukraine has not officially commented.

Ukraine has spent months hitting the supply lines, depots, and infrastructure that sustain Russia’s occupation of southern and eastern Ukraine, with mid-range drones striking trucks, trains, and communications towers well behind the front. This spring the commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces, Robert “Madyar” Brovdi, promised Russian troops in occupied territory a “stone age.” This time the targets were the networks the occupation runs on.

A burned-out Ukrtelecom building in Luhansk

Residents reported explosions in Luhansk overnight, and the former Ukrtelecom building was attacked by a drone, Astra reported, citing its readers. The occupation runs its mobile operator, “Lugacom,” from the seized building, and built its network on equipment taken from Ukraine’s Kyivstar, according to dev.ua. The building also houses an occupation-run telecom services center. Luhansk is situated in the easternmost Ukrainian region and has been occupied since 2014.

Ukrainian monitoring channel Exilenova+ said Ukraine’s Defense Forces struck the building, which also hosts an information technology and technical support center. A video it posted shows extensive burning inside. Petro Andriushchenko, head of the Center for the Study of Occupation, said the drones hit a data center in the building.

Occupation officials had not commented, according to NV. In September, drones hit a hardware store in Luhansk, sparking a large fire. Earlier this month, fires broke out at a Russian supply base in Khrustalnyi, also in occupied Luhansk Oblast.

Donetsk’s occupation telecom operator hit the night before

The night before, drones struck “Ugletelecom,” one of the key communications operators in occupied Donetsk Oblast, Exilenova+ reported. It operates from an office building at 60 Postysheva Street, where Ukraine’s state holding company Donbasugleobespechenie was registered before the occupation, according to RBC-Ukraine. Astra found about 27 organizations registered at the address, including internet provider Fticom, and damage on four floors.

Ugletelecom runs on equipment seized from Ukrainian companies, Donetsk-focused outlet Kochegarka reported, citing local sources. The occupation also moved local businesses that had used Ukrtelecom over to it, according to dev.ua. Residents had reported powerful explosions in the city.

Power cuts across the occupied territories

In occupied Donetsk Oblast, drones attacked the 330 kV Pivdenna substation in Chystiakove, and locals reported outages, Telegram channel DroneBomber said, calling the report preliminary. Occupied Donetsk went into a blackout on the evening of 20 October after strikes on its power supply, Andriushchenko said. He also reported air defense activity and hits in the Mariupol area.

In occupied Crimea, residents of Krasnoperekopsk reported explosions and hits near the railway station, then partial power cuts, monitoring channel Crimean Wind said. In occupied Melitopol, drones tried to attack the city’s power facilities at around 03:30 but missed, Russian senator Dmitry Rogozin claimed.

French mapper Clément Molin counted 770 confirmed Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian trucks in the logistics zone 10 km behind the front line in September, up from 630 in August.