Ukraine reportedly uses new drone-missile hybrid to strike Russian city of Taganrog

Ukraine launched missile and drone strikes on Russia’s Rostov and Bryansk border regions overnight on Tuesday, damaging an industrial facility and causing a fire on an oil pipeline, according to local officials.

The governor of Russia’s southwestern Rostov region Yury Slyusar reported that a Ukrainian missile strike damaged an unspecified “industrial facility” in the port city of Taganrog, adding that there had been no casualties, while another strike damaged a boiler plant, according to Taganrog’s Mayor Svetlana Kambulova.

Pro-Kremlin Telegram channel Mash reported that the AFU may have used its newly developed Peklo drone-missile hybrid to attack Taganrog, claiming that Peklo debris was found in the city.

On Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that the new weapon, whose name means “hell” in Ukrainian, had been successfully deployed in combat, without specifying when or where it had been used, and that the first batch had been immediately handed over to the AFU.

According to Ukrinform and Interfax-Ukraine agencies, the new drone has a range of 700 kilometres and a speed of 700 kilometres per hour.

In a separate overnight attack, Ukrainian drones struck a loading point for the Druzhba oil pipeline in Russia’s southern Bryansk region, causing a “massive fire” according to the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU). The pipeline, which is one of the largest in the world, is a key supply route for Russian oil heading to Europe.