Ukraine announced Saturday that it used its Flamingo cruise missiles overnight to strike Russia's Titan-Barrikady weapons plant, which reportedly manufactures parts for its powerful Oreshnik missile.
The military plant is in Volgograd, formerly Stalingrad, which is a major industrial city in southwest Russia. Writing on X, President Zelensky described it as a "major industrial complex" where Russia "produces artillery systems and specialized military equipment, including components for missile launch systems."
"Every Russian defense facility involved in the war against Ukraine is a legitimate target for our long-range strikes," he wrote.
The Associated Press reports, "Volgograd Gov. Andrei Bocharov confirmed an attack on a business in the region’s Krasnooktyabrsky district, saying 10 people had been wounded and taken to a hospital. He said production facilities at the site were damaged but did not identify the company."
Additionally, "Ukraine's state security service said Saturday morning that Ukrainian forces also struck an oil pumping facility in Russia’s Vladimir region that supplies fuel to Moscow, for the second time this month."
But on the other side of the border, Ukrainian media reports that Russia was also busy with now nightly airstrikes:
Russian forces targeted production facilities belonging to the Naftogaz Group, Ukraine's largest national oil and gas company, in the Poltava and Kharkiv regions.
The barrage of attacks included 129 drones, of which 113 were destroyed or jammed by Ukrainian forces, Ukrainian media reported.
The Russian overnight attacks on Ukraine killed two people and injuring more than 20, according to state officials.
At a moment much of the globe's attention remains fixated on Iran and the fate of energy shipping through the largely blocked Strait of Hormuz, the Ukraine war is rapidly escalating.
Ukrainian leadership has issued some astounding stats on the escalation on its side of the border:
Russia attacked Ukraine with 1,400 drones and 1,500 guided bombs
President Volodymyr Zelensky stated on Saturday, June 27, that Russian forces deployed approximately 1,400 attack drones, 1,500 guided aerial bombs, and 19 missiles of various types, including ballistic missiles, against Ukraine over the past week.
In a statement published on Telegram, Zelensky noted that 15 Ukrainian regions were subjected to Russian attacks during the seven-day period. He highlighted that the cities of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv, and Sumy faced near-daily bombardment.
But it also over the past week has sent projectiles into Russia in the thousands. Ukraine's asymmetric warfare strategy against Russia's much-larger and better armed military machine has put Kiev in significantly better position - in terms of potential negotiating leverage - than the status of a year or so ago.
Russian forces still have the upper-hand on the front line in the east, but the pain clearly being inflicted on Russia's economy can't be ignored at this point. There are reports of fuel shortages across dozens of regions and especially in Crimea over the past several days.
President Trump has lately suggested that Ukraine is doing well in the war, or at least much better than it once was. Kiev now feels the pressure to keep this narrative going, also so it can attract more and more weapons and intelligence help. But at some point Russia will feel it necessary to strongly reassert its red lines. This could come in the form of another massive escalation, and against 'decision-making centers'.