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- Ukraine said it carried out a drone attack on a Russian ammunition depot over the weekend.
- Kyiv said Iranian missiles had arrived at the site shortly before the attack.
- Russia received a number of short-range ballistic missiles from Iran earlier this month.
Ukrainian forces used long-range drones to strike an ammunition depot inside Russia shortly after a shipment of Iranian missiles had arrived at the facility.
The Ukrainian military said on Sunday that its drone attack caused damage at an arsenal in Kotluban, a small settlement in Russia’s southeastern Volgograd region, in what appears to be Kyiv’s latest long-range strike on a key weapons storage facility.
“According to available information, on the eve of the attack, an echelon with Iranian missiles arrived at the arsenal,” the Ukrainian military said in a statement shared to the Telegram messaging platform.
Russia received shipments of short-range ballistic missiles from Iran earlier this month, causing alarm among the US and its European allies, which have long repeatedly expressed concern over deepening military cooperation between Moscow and Tehran.
US officials warned at the time that Russia would likely use its new Iranian missiles to attack Ukraine within weeks, so the weapons may have been high-priority targets for Kyiv.
The Ukrainian military said that although electronic warfare capabilities and anti-aircraft defenses protected the Russian arsenal in Kotluban, its units “successfully completed the combat mission.” Kyiv added that the attack caused a fire and that ammunition detonated at the site.
It’s unclear exactly how many Ukrainian drones were used in the attack. Russia’s defense ministry said on Sunday that it intercepted 125 unmanned systems overnight, including 67 over the Volgograd region.
“Defense forces continue to undermine the enemy’s military potential,” the Ukrainian military said in its statement.
The Sunday operation appears to mark the latest in a string of successful Ukrainian attacks on Russian ammunition depots. Kyiv struck multiple sites across the country earlier in September, causing extensive damage to the facilities and destroying an immense amount of weaponry.
Britain’s defense ministry said in a Sunday intelligence update that strikes on Russian ammunition depots “will almost certainly cause, at a minimum, short-term disruption” to Moscow’s supply of weaponry like artillery and small-arms munitions.
The ammunition depot attacks underscore Ukraine’s ability to hit key military facilities deep inside Russia consistently. Kyiv has relied on homemade, long-range drones for this campaign because it is restricted from using its inventory of Western-provided missiles to strike Russian territory.
Ukrainian officials have repeatedly pushed for the West to drop these restrictions, arguing that it interferes with Kyiv’s ability to fight Russia effectively.