Fire Rips Through Russian Ballistic Missile Component Factory

A factory that makes components for Russia’s military has caught fire following a Ukrainian drone strike, it has been reported.

Russian media published videos that showed the blaze at the Kremniy El microelectronics plant in the city of Bryansk, about 60 miles north of Russia’s border with Ukraine’s Sumy Oblast following the attack on Friday night.

The Russian Telegram channel Supernova Plus published a clip in which the person filming the site shouted an expletive as the explosion lit up the night sky. Follow-up posts showed daytime images of smashed windows of a building.

Often without claiming direct responsibility, Ukraine has stepped up drone and missile strikes on Russian energy and military infrastructure aimed at curbing Moscow’s war machine. Newsweek has contacted the Ukrainian and Russian defense ministries for comment.

The footage of the latest reported incident showed at least one explosion and smoke plumes rising over the factory which social media users said was one of Russia’s largest microelectronics enterprises. It had been attacked before, in August 2023 as well as three other times, according to Radio Svoboda, the Russian branch of the U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

“Kremniy is one of the largest microelectronics enterprises in Russia that produces semiconductor devices, integrated circuits and power modules,” posted Ukrainian internal affairs adviser Anton Gerashchenko on X (formerly Twitter) next to a clip of the flames. “It completes a large number of orders from the Russian defense ministry,” he wrote.

The site develops advanced radar systems for air defense, aircraft, and naval vessels and manufactures components for Russia’s Pantsir air defense systems and Iskander missile complexes, pro-Ukrainian United 24 Media reported.

The Ukrainian publication Defense Express said that since 2010, the plant has received $5.5 million for development and that by 2014 it had an eight-fold increase in production over the previous decade and a half.

The Astra Telegram channel said that 94 percent of the factory’s output in 2017 was produced for the needs of the Russian Defense Ministry.

In a series of Telegram posts on Saturday, Bryansk regional Governor Alexander Bogomaz said there had been a fire in a “non-residential building” following the Ukrainian attack but that it had been extinguished and there were no casualties.

“Ukrainian terrorists have carried out another attack using a fixed-wing UAV on the territory of our region,” he posted on Telegram “When repelling the terrorist attack, one of the drones crashed into an uninhabited building.”

Without mentioning the Kremniy El factory, the Russian Defense Ministry said Kyiv’s attacks were “thwarted” and that Russia’s air defense had downed a total of 17 Ukrainian drones over Bryansk Oblast, six over Belgorod Oblast, two over Rostov Oblast, and one over Belgorod Oblast overnight.