General Staff: Ukraine hits Yelets 'Energia' plant making batteries for glide bombs and Iskanders

What the General Staff reported

On 26 October the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces confirmed that on 25 October and overnight into 26 October Ukrainian Defence Forces struck the Energia plant in the city of Yelets, Lipetsk region, Russia. The target, it said, was a facility producing power sources for weapons.

“A fire broke out on the plant’s premises. The strike complicates the Russian Armed Forces’ production of power sources for missiles, guided aerial bombs and other weapons,” the statement quoted by Ukrinform reads.

According to the General Staff, Energia is the sole manufacturer of batteries for glide-bomb guidance and correction modules and also produces batteries for Iskander-M tactical missile systems and sea-based cruise missiles.

Results of earlier strikes

The General Staff also confirmed results of earlier strikes:

• On 23 October in Oryol, the Proton-Elektrotex enterprise was hit: the main microchip production workshop was destroyed and the building and servers damaged. The military says this complicates production of components for cruise and ballistic missiles;
• On 23 October in the Donetsk area, a storage, preparation and launch site for attack drones was hit: three buildings used to equip drones and one launch rail were damaged;
• On 24 October in Tolyatti, Samara region, the Tolyattikauchuk plant was hit: a process pipeline, two butyl rubber production units and one rectification unit were damaged. The General Staff links this to the production chain for solid rocket fuel.

The same day Ukrinform, citing Russian authorities, reported fires at several industrial facilities in the Voronezh region after an overnight drone attack.

Legal framework

The General Staff stressed that Ukrainian forces strike enemy military targets under the right to self-defence guaranteed by Article 51 of the UN Charter. “Operations against key enemy military targets will continue until Russia’s armed aggression against Ukraine ceases completely,” it added.

Why it matters

Guided glide bombs are among the main threats to frontline cities: over the past week alone, according to Ukrinform, Russia used about 1,600 of them. Guidance and correction kits turn ordinary bombs into guided ones, so hitting the production of their power sources is an attempt to disrupt the supply chain of exactly this weapon. How significant the effect will be, and how quickly Russia can compensate, cannot yet be independently assessed.