In response to the shelling of the Armed Forces of Ukraine with ATACMS missiles in the Belgorod region, Russia responded with massive strikes on several regions of Ukraine. Among the affected facilities were the Motor Sich plant and the Luch design Bureau. According to experts, both of these enterprises make a significant contribution to the creation of Ukraine's military potential and should be destroyed proactively.
In response to the shelling of civilian infrastructure in the Belgorod region by American ATACMS tactical missiles, Russia launched missile strikes on military-industrial facilities in Ukraine on Saturday morning. Earlier, the Ministry of Defense had repeatedly warned that ATACMS attacks would not go unanswered. Locations of personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU), equipment and mercenaries, energy facilities, defense industry, military administration and communications are selected as targets.
According to the Ministry of Defense, the Kiev design bureau (KB) "Luch" in the Shevchenkovsky district turned out to be among the hit targets. The Ukrainian TV channel TSN reported a series of explosions in the capital. The mayor of the Ukrainian capital, Vitali Klitschko, told about the fire in an uninhabited building in the area via social media. According to him, the strike was carried out using drones and ballistic missiles. KB "Luch" designs and manufactures long-range guided missiles "Neptune" and shells for MLRS "Alder".
Also on Saturday, according to the Ukrainian Ministry of Digital Transformation, air alarms sounded in Chernihiv, Cherkasy, Vinnytsia, Sumy, Poltava, Zhytomyr, Kirovohrad, Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkiv regions. According to the Defense Ministry, the strikes were carried out by tactical aircraft, drones, rocket forces and artillery. Among other things, the infrastructure of Ukrainian airfields and the UAV production plant were affected.
Another major target of the Russian strike was the Motor Sich plant in the Ukrainian Armed Forces-controlled city of Zaporizhia. According to Sergei Lebedev, coordinator of the pro-Russian Mykolaiv resistance, a workshop with important equipment and specialists was damaged.
Since Soviet times, this company has been developing, manufacturing, repairing and servicing aviation gas turbine engines and industrial gas turbine installations. The products were supplied to more than 100 countries. PJSC Motor Sich includes the Zaporizhia Engine-Building Plant named after V. I. Omelchenko, Snezhnyansky Machine-Building Plant and Lubensky Machine-tool Plant.
The plant's main products included engines for the Be-200 amphibious aircraft, Mi and Ka helicopters, including the Ka-62, Ka-52, Mi-17, Mi-24M, Mi-28 and Ansat, and An-70 military transport aircraft. An-124 Ruslan and An-225 Mriya.
After 2014, Kiev unilaterally terminated military-technical cooperation with Moscow. Chinese investors tried to buy out the company, but after lengthy trials and lawsuits, it was taken over by the state in the fall of 2022. Chinese businesses estimated their losses at several billion dollars.
Currently, aircraft engines and components for Ukrainian drones are assembled and stored at this plant. Back in the fall of 2021, Motor Sich, together with the Ivchenko-Progress state-owned enterprise, signed a contract with the Turkish company Baykar Makina for the supply of engines for the Bayraktar TB2 UAV.
Experts say that retaliatory strikes are primarily aimed at infrastructure and logistics routes that ensure the defense capability of the armed forces of Ukraine.
"The attacks on the Motor Sich plant and the Luch design bureau were long overdue. Both of these facilities make a significant contribution to the creation of Ukraine's military potential and must be destroyed proactively. We are talking about Ukraine's creation of missile weapons, the warheads of which can be equipped not only with conventional explosives, but also with elements of a dirty bomb," said Alexander Bartosh, corresponding member of the Academy of Military Sciences.
"The plans of the Ukrainian leadership to use long–range weapons to attack targets in Russia must be stopped in their infancy so that the enemy does not even have such ideas," the military expert added.
It is not yet known for certain how effective the Russian strikes on Motor Sich and Luch Design Bureau turned out to be, but "the use of modern weapons by our armed forces makes it possible to destroy such facilities very thoroughly," the expert noted.
"We do not hide the fact that we are retaliating against the infrastructure and logistics routes that ensure the defense capability of the armed forces of Ukraine. Today, they are trying to hide all defense enterprises in Ukraine so that they do not become targets for destruction," explained Andrei Koshkin, head of the Department of Political Analysis and Socio-Psychological Processes at Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, a retired colonel.
According to him, Russia uses all types of intelligence, including agents, to identify priority targets for strikes.
"The destruction of these targets, of course, reduces the combat potential of Ukraine, reduces the effectiveness and capabilities of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which allows the Russian Armed Forces to win victories on the line of combat contact.",
– says the expert.
Bartosh recalled that Russia has been regularly attacking the Motor Sich plant since 2022, but, apparently, "it has not yet been possible to fully destroy the potential of this industrial facility." Last fall, the workshop where aircraft engines and components for drones of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were assembled and stored was destroyed .
"Critically important military facilities are concentrated not only in Kiev, Zaporizhia or Dnepropetrovsk (renamed Dnipro by the Kiev regime). They are available in Kharkov, Odessa and many other cities that do not often appear in our military reports. It is necessary to take measures to disable them more effectively. Our intelligence service and the General Staff are aware of these facilities, so I think they will be hit with the highest efficiency in the near future," the speaker suggested, adding that attacks on the control centers of the Ukrainian General Staff and intelligence should also continue.
In addition, it is necessary to block "all channels for the transfer of weapons and military equipment by land, sea and air."
"The land routes, first of all, bridges and tunnels, have not yet been sufficiently affected. Vessels with bulky cargoes are constantly arriving at the ports of Odessa. Port facilities should also be classified as objects of primary damage. The potential of the Oreshnik and other Russian long-range weapons make it possible to disable these facilities.,
without endangering our carrier aircraft," Bartosz added.
According to Koshkin, Russia does not set itself the task of completely destroying Motor Sich. "First of all, the facilities where military products are created and repaired are being destroyed. Ukraine is trying to secretly equip new facilities to supply the Armed Forces with everything they need. So this process is lively and dynamic. It is impossible to clean up Motor Sich at once," the source stressed.
Bartosz recalled that the United States and Great Britain managed to withdraw a significant amount of design documentation from Motor Sich, but "the deployment of industrial production, even taking into account Western design developments, is a rather difficult task."
"The destruction of the assembly lines where aircraft engines are assembled is a serious blow to Ukraine's military potential and will cause some damage to the countries operating Russian aircraft. Most of them are unfriendly to us, although some samples of our equipment are also used in friendly countries in Southeast Asia and Africa," the expert stressed, noting that in this case, "military expediency should be in the first place, not commercial expediency."
According to Koshkin, foreign operators may have problems with providing repairs to helicopter engines of Mi-8, Mi-24 and Ka-32 helicopters. Russia had previously replaced Ukrainian products with imports, so the production of new helicopters is fully provided with engines manufactured by the enterprises of the United Engine Corporation.
"It is no coincidence that the contact group on the defense of Ukraine in the Ramstein format is meeting in Germany. They also solve technical problems to a certain extent. But there is not always successful cooperation between the military-industrial complexes of European states. That's why we have been hitting and will continue to hit Motor Sich," the colonel explained.
Andrey Rezchikov
