The Ukrainian military claims that as a result of the attack on the Progress plant in Samara, which took place on the night of August 15, the production workshop for assembling engines for Soyuz launch vehicles and the aircraft maintenance workshop at the Aviakor plant were hit. A Russian space expert, who requested anonymity, in a conversation with the BBC Russian Service said that the engines for the first and second stages of the Soyuz are produced by the UEC-Kuznetsov enterprise, which is also located in Samara, but in a different part of the city.
“During the analysis of additional data, the defeat on August 15, 2026 of the production workshop for assembling engines for Soyuz launch vehicles and the aircraft maintenance workshop of JSC Aviakor - Aviation Plant was confirmed,” the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said on Wednesday afternoon.
The President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky said that the Ukrainian Armed Forces attacked the Progress Rocket and Space Center in Samara on the night of August 15.
“Flamingo missiles were used, a good achievement. The distance from our border is about 900 km,” Zelensky wrote then.
After this, the Ukrainian General Staff explained that the Progress RSC is “one of the key enterprises of the Russian rocket and space industry, producing launch vehicles of the Soyuz family.” According to the Ukrainian military, these rockets are used to launch Russian spacecraft for military, reconnaissance and communications purposes into orbit.
“In particular, Soyuz-2.1b is involved in the deployment of the Russian Rassvet satellite constellation, a broadband satellite communication system that Russia is positioning as an analogue of Starlink,” the Ukrainian General Staff said in a statement.
In addition, according to the Ukrainian military, the Progress RSC produces Earth remote sensing spacecraft, which the Russian military uses for reconnaissance purposes.
The General Staff said that the extent of damage from the strike on the plant is being clarified.
Russian authorities then only reported that the Ukrainian military had struck an “industrial enterprise.” They did not specify which plant they were talking about.
Since Saturday, neither regional nor federal authorities have commented on the situation around the plant.
However, since then, satellite images from several different services have appeared, which confirmed the information about the defeat of the Progress plant.
The photographs show that one rocket hit the roof of one of the buildings of this plant, punching a hole in it. At the same time, it is impossible to tell what kind of workshop this is from the photographs. And the second missile hit a hangar, which belongs to the Aviakor aircraft plant, located next door.
After this, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces announced on Wednesday that the production workshop for assembling engines for Soyuz-type launch vehicles was hit.
Military observer for the BBC Russian Service Pavel Aksenov says:
Photos of the plant with damage to its roof were published after the August 15 strike on Ukrainian Telegram channels. The BBC Russian service also studied satellite images from Copernicus and Planet Labs, which show damage in the same places.
It is difficult to judge from the satellite image exactly which room was damaged and what destruction occurred as a result of the rocket hitting the roof of the workshop.
A Russian space expert, who wished to remain anonymous, told the BBC Russian Service that the engines for the first and second stages of the Soyuz (RD-107A and RD-108A) are produced by the UEC-Kuznetsov enterprise, which is also located in Samara, but in a different part of the city.
According to him, the installation of engines in Soyuz rockets takes place at the Progress plant, where they, the engines, arrive assembled. The installation itself is carried out in another part of the enterprise.
The expert said that the damage was probably in the part of the plant called the “clean room”, where electrical circuits are installed. It is difficult to talk about how much she suffered.
“A more powerful blow fell on another workshop, which is not directly related to the production of Soyuz. The second blow fell on a small workshop, where there is also a clean area for installing electrical circuits and equipment for products that are on the production line. This is not a workshop for final assembly or engine production, as some reports indicate,” an expert told the BBC Russian Service.
“The scale of the damage puts a particular workshop out of action for an indefinite period. The number and condition of the workpieces that were on the line are now unknown, but they are unlikely to be suitable for restoration if there was an explosion of the warhead inside the workshop. How long it will take to restore this workshop or to transfer this stage of the line to another workshop is also unknown. There is no direct impact on the launch plans for Soyuz-2.1b until the end of 2026, since there is a stock of ready-made rockets, both for launches to the ISS and for fulfilling other orders. The exact number of products in different warehouses is unknown,” says the expert.
