Photo: Social media
In the early hours of April 19, explosions were reported in Taganrog, followed by a large fire at one of the sites. According to Russian Telegram channels, the likely target was the Taganrog Automobile Plant in the Rostov region.
The Taganrog Automobile Plant (TagAZ) was a former Russian manufacturer that assembled passenger and commercial vehicles for brands such as Daewoo, Hyundai, Chery, BYD, SsangYong, and JAC, and also attempted to develop its own brands, Vortex and TagAZ. Since the early 2000s, the company had been struggling financially and was officially declared bankrupt in 2014. Production was halted, and much of its equipment was either left unused or sold off to cover debts.
In recent years, amid ongoing financial difficulties, parts of the facility were reportedly repurposed for the production of drones for the Russian military. The site is also used by Atlant Aero, which produces “Molniya” strike-reconnaissance drones and supplies components for “Orion” UAVs.
Earlier, on the night of April 18, Ukrainian unmanned systems forces carried out a series of strikes on military and infrastructure targets in Russia and in temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories. According to the commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces, Robert Brovdi (“Madyar”), targets included oil refineries in Novokuibyshevsk and Syzran in the Samara region, as well as the port of Vysotsk, a fuel depot in occupied Sevastopol, an oil transshipment facility in Tikhoretsk, and other military sites in occupied areas of Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Crimea.
