Ukraine’s General Staff said on Wednesday that its August 15 missile strike on a Russian space center had hit an engine-assembling workshop for Soyuz rockets as well as an aircraft maintenance facility.
The Ukrainian military said its assessment was based “on the analysis of additional data,” while Russia has acknowledged an industrial facility in the area was attacked without specifying whether there was damage to the Progress Rocket Space Center. The assessment follows the posting online of satellite imagery apparently showing damage from the missile strike.
The Progress center produces Soyuz-2 rockets that are regularly launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Independent confirmation of the extent of damage from the strike in Russia’s Samara region, as well as whether the strike might affect future Soyuz launches from Baikonur, remain difficult.
The Ukrainian General Staff statement also said a fire spanning about 5,000 square meters was recorded as a result of the strike on the Progress center, which it described as an important military target.
The center “is one of the key enterprises in the Russian rocket and space industry, involved in the production of ‘Soyuz’ family rockets,” the statement said. “The company’s products are used, among other things, to launch spacecraft into orbit and to deploy Russian satellite communication groups for the benefit of the Russian army.”
