Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Wednesday that his country had struck a Russian military industrial plant with locally made cruise missiles that flew nearly 900 miles to reach their target.
Ukrainian officials earlier reported that the missile strike on Saturday had hit a plant in Votkinsk, an industrial town in Russia’s Udmurt Republic, some 860 miles from the Ukrainian border.
“We carried out precise strikes with Flamingo missiles at a range of 1,400 kilometers,” Zelenskyy said at a press conference in Kyiv. “I believe this is truly a success for our industry.”
Such an attack would be one of the longest-range strikes carried out so far by the Flamingo, which is touted as one of the star products in Ukraine’s local defense manufacturing scene. Kyiv has been aggressively trying to expand its weapons industry as a complement to Western supplies and as a future export sector.
The Flamingos’ target, the Votkinsk plant, manufactures some of Russia’s key munitions, such as ballistic missiles for the Iskander system and the submarine-launched Bulava missile.
Russia has not officially confirmed that the factory was hit, but Alexander Brechalov, the governor of the Udmurt Republic, said on Saturday that an unspecified facility in the region had been attacked and three people were sent to hospital.
Brechalov did not say if the Flamingo was used, but warned against drone threats over the region.
Ukrainian open-source groups later published satellite images that appeared to show damage to one of the workshops at the Votkinsk factory, with a gaping hole in its roof and signs of fire damage.
That evening, Kyiv had unleashed a large wave of drones and missiles into Russia in one of its biggest ever long-range attacks.
Russia’s defense ministry said that it shot down 77 Ukrainian drones on Saturday, but did not mention any Ukrainian missile threats.
Zelenskyy declined to say how many missiles or drones Ukraine launched in total on Saturday.
“There were interceptions by Russian air defense, there were also missiles that were not intercepted, and there were direct hits,” Zelenskyy said. “But the most important thing is that all the missiles that were launched all reached the target.”
Kyiv has often compared the Flamingo to the US-manufactured Tomahawk, saying that the Ukrainian turbofan-powered missile is much cheaper to make per unit and has a longer range of 1,900 miles.
The ground-launched Flamingo, however, takes up to 40 minutes to prepare for launch.
Ukraine is also still trying to build up its arsenal of the missile, with reports from last October saying that its manufacturer, FirePoint, hoped to produce up to seven a day by the end of 2025.
Kyiv said earlier this month that manufacturing had been affected by a recent Russian strike, with Zelenskyy warning that Ukraine had to “work on increasing quantity” of the Flamingo.
“We had certain technical problems because one large production line was destroyed as a result of a missile strike. They have already relocated and resumed production,” Zelenskyy had said at the time.
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