Ukraine said it hit a nitrogen fertilizer plant in Russia overnight while Kremlin’s forces targeted several Ukrainian regions, including a deadly strike in Dnipropetrovsk, as the war shows no signs of slowing down.
UAVs struck the KuibyshevAzot facility in Tolyatti, in Russia’s Samara region, Robert Brovdi, a Ukrainian drone unit commander known as Madyar, said in a Telegram post on Saturday.
While Russia didn’t confirm the information, regional Governor Vyacheslav Fedorishchev said earlier that the area had come under a drone attack targeting an unspecified industrial enterprise.
KuibyshevAzot is one of Russia’s largest nitrogen fertilizer producers. The crop nutrient has been in focus since the start of the Iran war and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. That’s choked off vital flows of fertilizers and the gas needed to produce them, boosting the role of Russia, the world’s No. 2 producer, in the global food supply chain.
Nitrogen fertilizer plants also often produce components for explosives, which Brodvi cited as a reason for the latest attack. KuibyshevAzot’s press service didn’t immediately answer a request for comment outside working hours.
Ukraine has stepped up strikes on Russian fertilizer operations in addition to refineries and other oil infrastructure to curb revenues for commodity exporters amid higher global prices sparked by the Iran war.
The Israeli-US war on Iran have consumed the attention of US President Donald Trump, setting back hopes for a quick diplomatic solution to end hostilities triggered by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Russian oil export hubs on the Baltic Sea have come under repeated attacks over the past week, with loadings at Ust-Luga halted since March 25. Dorogobuzh PJSC, another major Russian nitrogen fertilizer plant, will remain idle until May after a Ukrainian drone strike.
Russia said earlier on Saturday that drone debris struck a foreign-flagged bulk carrier off the coast of Taganrog on the Azov Sea, but the fire has since been contained, Yury Slyusar, governor of Russia’s Rostov region, said in a Telegram post.
The port of Taganrog handles shipments of grain, metals, coal and other industrial cargo. The overnight attack on the city killed one person and injured four others, the governor said. Separately, a missile strike triggered a fire at warehouse facilities belonging to a logistics company, he said.
In Ukraine at least five people were killed and 19 injured after a Russian drone hit a busy market in Nikopol, a city on the Dnieper River in the southeast Dnipropetrovsk region, the Office of the Prosecutor General said on its Telegram channel.
Russian forces also attacked infrastructure of the Naftogaz Group in the Poltava region, causing a fire, Chief Executive Officer Serhii Koretskyi said on Facebook.
Russia repelled 85 Ukrainian drones in about a dozen regions overnight, the defense ministry said. Kyiv’s forces at the same time shot down or suppressed 260 out of 286 Russian drones, with 11 UAVs striking targets at ten locations and debris falling at six sites, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said.
A Russian attack on northeast Ukraine damaged a high-rise residential building in Sumy, injuring 11 people, local authorities said. Kyiv also came under attack, with debris from intercepted drones sparking a fire on the roof of a four-storey office building, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.
The overnight strikes followed a larger drone and missile barrage fired at Ukraine on Friday, killing at least eight people.
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