Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, now on the board of the largest Ukrainian arms company, is shown a Flamingo missile.Image: keystone
Ukraine reports a spectacular strike deep inside Russia. However, the attack did not succeed with weapons from Western supporters.
02/23/2026, 05:3102/23/2026, 05:31
Christoph Cöln / t-online
For four years now, Ukraine has been asking its Western partners for support in its defensive fight against the Russian aggressor. President Volodymyr Zelenskyj repeatedly travels to European capitals, flatters the US President in Washington, DC or makes fiery appeals at international conferences. But all of his initiatives to obtain more powerful offensive weapons have so far failed.
Most recently, Zelensky even had to beg his allies to at least get the necessary contingents for domestic air defense in order to be able to stop the Putin regime’s daily air terror on Ukrainian cities. The result: German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) promised to deliver five Patriot missiles.
With five missiles, Ukraine cannot even protect a single large city for one night. Pistorius also tied his offer to the condition that the five rockets would only be delivered if other European partners delivered 30 of them. That was ten days ago. What became of it is not known. Since then, a number of people in Ukraine have died in Russian bombing terror.
Important military armaments plant of the Putin regime
The Ukrainian army’s stocks of anti-aircraft missiles are running low. The country is already defenseless in many places. But now a piece of news is causing a stir. According to the Ukrainian news agency Ukrinform, the Kiev army carried out a spectacular airstrike on a defense factory deep inside Russia on Saturday. According to Russian authorities, at least eleven people were injured in the attack on the Republic of Udmurtia, west of the Ural Mountains, known for its armaments factories.
Videos on social networks show columns of black smoke and significant damage to buildings in the city of Votkinsk, where the vital operation is located.
The Ukrainian General Staff said that important objects of the enemy’s military-industrial complex and logistics were hit. The target of the attack was apparently production sites for the Iskander-M, Oreshnik and Kinschal intercontinental ballistic missiles. These play a major role in Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine: Vladimir Putin rains cruise missiles of this type on the neighboring country almost every day in order to completely destroy its energy infrastructure and crush the population. But she doesn’t give up.
Expert: “A real problem for Putin”
Quite the opposite. The attack on the Russian arms factory sends a strong signal to the warlord in the Kremlin – and at the same time to the European allies. Because it wasn’t achieved with missiles from the Western partners’ stocks. For the attack around 1,400 kilometers behind the Ukrainian border, Kiev’s army used the Flamingo cruise missile. A Ukrainian-made weapon system. As has happened so often in this war, Kiev is not waiting for its allies to finally pull themselves together and act. Kyiv acts itself.
“The flamingo could pose a real problem for Putin,” wrote German political analyst and military expert Fabian Hoffmann in an analysis for the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). Accordingly, the weapon has the long-range capacity that Ukraine urgently needs. This is important in order to hit the Putin regime’s weapons complexes hidden deep inside Russia and thus dry up the supply of bombs for Moscow’s air war.
Instead of waiting in vain for help from the West in terms of anti-aircraft defense, Ukraine is going on the offensive: it is attacking the Russian bombs before they can even be deployed. With the Flamingo, Ukraine now has a real “heavyweight in its arsenal,” notes Hoffmann.
The advantage of the weapon is not only its long range (according to the manufacturer, it can fly up to 3,000 kilometers). Above all, it is the ability to carry a large warhead weighing more than a ton. This is what distinguishes the Flamingo from the long-range drones made in Ukraine. These fly far, but carry much smaller explosive charges. They are also easier to intercept than cruise missiles.
Zelenskyj makes promises to his compatriots
The extent of the damage to the arms factory in Udmurtia, Russia, is still being examined, according to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry. So far there is no information available as to how successful the attack really was. The Russian Defense Ministry announced that the anti-aircraft defense had shot down, among other things, five flamingos and more than 170 drones. However, as almost always, the ministry did not provide any information about the damage or the exact locations.
Experts see the fact that Ukraine was able to attack the military complex in Votkinsk at all as further evidence that Kiev now has the ability to carry out momentous counterattacks deep in the Russian hinterland. There was correspondingly great excitement about the blow in Russian Telegram channels. There, war bloggers loyal to the Kremlin were upset about the obviously inadequate Russian air defense.
«Any attack by the Ukrainian armed forces on Udmurtia raises questions about the organization of air defense. How could something fly more than 1,400 km over our country and bypass all air defense positions?” it said, among other things. Putin’s henchmen are angry about Ukraine’s amazing military capabilities. Meanwhile, President Zelensky made a promise to his battered compatriots over the weekend:
“We will definitely not lose the war.”
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