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Jebaluga Special Economic Zone (photo from 2022)
Photo: Nikita Maykov / Pond5 Images / IMAGO
According to emergency services, at least seven people were injured in a drone attack on the Russian republic of Tatarstan. The targets were industrial plants in the cities of Yelabuga and Nizhnekamsk, said republic leader Rustam Minnikhanov on his Telegram channel. However, the companies' "technological process," as he called it, was not disrupted. Russian media reports spoke of three suspected Ukrainian drones that attacked the region around 1,200 kilometers from the Ukrainian border.
According to Russian information, two drones exploded close to a student dormitory in Yelabuga. Videos in Telegram channels show people throwing themselves to the ground in the face of the explosions. According to earlier Ukrainian information, Iranian Shahed combat drones are being produced in a special economic zone in Yelabuga. Students from a technical college work in this factory. In the second city attacked, Nizhnekamsk, there are large oil processing plants belonging to the regional oil company Tatneft.
Ukrainian-made drones
Ukraine has been fending off a large-scale Russian invasion for over two years. In its defense against Russia's war of aggression, Ukraine has been systematically attacking Russian oil refineries with long-range combat drones for several weeks. Russia, for its part, used ten Shahed drones against Ukraine on Tuesday night, according to the Ukrainian Air Force. Nine of them were shot down, it was said.
Ukraine uses drones it has developed itself because many weapons supplied from abroad are subject to the requirement that they not be used against Russian territory. The SBU secret service and the HUR military intelligence agency are responsible for the actions. These two services were warned by the Americans, reported the Financial Times. One fear is that Russia will retaliate by stopping energy infrastructure that is important to the West, such as the CPC pipeline for oil from Kazakhstan.
aka/dpa