KYIV: Ukraine said on Saturday its long-range strikes had hit a Russian military airfield and a rocket centre that Kyiv says supports Russia's nascent Starlink-style satellite internet network. President Volodymyr Zelensky said Flamingo cruise missiles struck the rocket facility, about 900 km from Ukraine's border, as part of Kyiv's campaign to pressure Moscow to end the more than four-year war by targeting sites deep inside Russia. "It is important that Russia's war potential be reduced. Peace is needed, and this must be evident in Russia - through concrete damage to specific facilities," he said in a post on X. He said the airfield hosted aircraft used to attack Ukraine.
Ukraine's General Staff said direct hits were recorded at both the airfield in Russia's Nizhny Novgorod region and the Progress rocket and space centre in Samara region. It said the strikes had sparked fires at both sites. The General Staff said the Samara plant produces rockets used to launch satellites for the Rassvet broadband network, which Russia is developing as an alternative to SpaceX's Starlink. Starlink operates in Ukraine, but not in Russia, and has given Kyiv a major advantage in drone operations and battlefield communications. — Reuters
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