Ukrainian forces on Tuesday struck the Russian city of Bryansk, home to a major factory that produces components for Russian missiles, in an attack that killed six civilians and injured 42 others, the region’s governor said.
In their accounts of the strike, the Russian authorities did not mention any damage to the plant, called Kremniy El. They called the attack an “inhuman act” committed by “Ukrainian terrorists,” and said it had been conducted with seven British Storm Shadow missiles.
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said that Ukrainian forces had successfully struck a plant in Bryansk that produced “control systems for all types of Russian missiles.” These missiles, he said in his nightly address on Tuesday, “strike our cities, our villages and civilians.”
The attack highlighted how Ukraine can still hit high-value targets inside Russia despite the Russian military’s deployment of air defenses and the jamming of GPS and mobile internet networks.
The Ukrainian General Staff called the plant, which lies about 60 miles inside Russia, a “critically important link” in the production of Russian missiles. It said the facility made “discrete semiconductor devices and integrated microchips.”
“The target was hit, and significant damage to production facilities was recorded,” the General Staff said in a statement. “The extent of the damage is being clarified.”
On Wednesday, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said in a statement that “the main production facility” of the plant had been destroyed as a result of the strike.
Video footage distributed by the Ukrainian military and verified by The New York Times showed the moment that the factory was hit, causing explosions and large plumes of smoke. Other footage circulating on social media, filmed down the road, showed clouds of smoke rising into the sky as multiple areas around the factory were targeted.
In a phone call with journalists on Wednesday, Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, said that such an attack “would not be possible without British specialists,” though he did not elaborate and offered no evidence for British involvement in the strike. Storm Shadow missiles are produced jointly by Britain and France.
Britain, which has been at the forefront of weapons aid to Ukraine, has donated Storm Shadows. Storm Shadows have a range of more than 150 miles, so they give Kyiv the ability to hit targets deep into Russia.
Maria Zakharova, the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, said that Ukrainian forces had “deliberately attacked the civilian population.” She called for the United Nations to comment on the incident.
Ukraine says that its forces strike only military targets inside Russia. Thousands of Ukrainian civilians have died in Russian attacks on Ukraine’s towns and cities.
Aleksandr Bogomaz, the governor of the Bryansk region, said that 29 people were hospitalized after the strike on Tuesday. He posted a video of himself from the scene of the attack, where he heard a report from emergency service workers while standing next to ruined stores and an apartment building with most of its windows broken.
In a separate statement, Mr. Bogomaz declared Wednesday a day of mourning in the region.
The Kremniy El factory is a sprawling complex of industrial and office buildings in the western part of Bryansk, closer to the Ukrainian border. On its website, the plant is described as “one of the biggest microelectronics enterprises in Russia,” with more than 1,700 workers.
Russian military bloggers, who have emerged as a vocal force supporting the Russian war effort but often criticize its execution, were dismayed by the attack. One of them, Anastasiya Kashevarova, called it a result of “criminal negligence and unthinkable stupidity.”
“How much time, money and effort will it take to not only rebuild the production but also train new specialists?” she said in a post on Telegram.
Sanjana Varghese, Nataliia Novosolova and Cassandra Vinograd contributed reporting.
Ivan Nechepurenko covers Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, the countries of the Caucasus, and Central Asia.
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