# REPORT: Ukrainian drones attack the Azot chemical plant in Novomoskovsk — Russia's rear is burning

> On the night of June 25–26, 2026, the residents of Novomoskovsk, an industrial city in the Tula region, lived through a night they will not soon forget. Ukrainian drones hovered over the city for several hours, filmed by residents whose videos quickly spread across Russian social media before being partially suppressed by the authorities. Explosions rang out through the night.

- Author: Maxime Marquette
- Publisher: MadMax (https://mad-max.co)
- Section: Reportage
- Published: 2026-06-29
- Canonical URL: https://mad-max.co/en/article/reportage-des-drones-ukrainiens-attaquent-l-usine-chimique-azot-de-novomoskovsk-

## Key takeaways

- Residents filmed drones hovering over Novomoskovsk for several hours, with explosions, an ammonia smell and power outages reported; Russian authorities published no official damage assessment.
- The article says the Azot plant makes chemical components used in explosives for Russian military plants, citing Militarnyi.
- It places the strike within a week of targeted operations: Voronezh (June 22), Orenburg helium plant (June 24), Azot (June 25–26) and the Slavyansk ECO refinery (June 27–28).
- The author argues that drone capability and Ukraine's domestic drone build-up explain the strike, and that it erodes Putin's promise of security.
- The 40-day campaign, approved June 25, is said to run to about early August 2026 and to coincide with the NATO summit in Ankara and ceasefire talks.

## Introduction: On the night of June 25–26, Tula burns under the drones

### Residents were filming; explosions had been going on for hours

On the night of **June 25–26, 2026**, the residents of **Novomoskovsk**, an industrial city in the **Tula region**, lived through a night they will not soon forget. **Ukrainian drones** hovered over the city for **several hours**, filmed by residents whose videos quickly spread across Russian social media before being partially suppressed by the authorities. Explosions rang out through the night. A smell of **ammonia** spread through the air. **Power outages** hit several neighborhoods. The target: the **Azot chemical plant**.

The **Tula region** sits roughly **200 kilometers** south of **Moscow**. This is not the front line — it is Russia's deep rear. And yet, that night, it was the rear that was burning. This strike illustrates with brutal clarity the growing reach of **Ukrainian drones** and the nature of the **40-day campaign** approved by **Zelensky** on **June 25**.

### The Azot plant: what it actually produces

The **Azot Novomoskovsk plant** is not an ordinary civilian fertilizer facility. According to analyses cited by **Militarnyi**, it manufactures **chemical components used in the production of explosives** at Russian military plants. By targeting this installation, **Ukraine** is directly striking the explosive supply chain of the **Russian army** — the raw materials that feed the artillery shells, mines and munitions falling daily on Ukrainian positions.

This logic is consistent with Ukraine's broader strategy in **June 2026**: strike the industrial nodes that feed the Russian war machine before they become weapons at the front. Every ton of chemical components destroyed in **Novomoskovsk** potentially reduces the number of shells available for Russian guns pounding **Kherson**, **Zaporizhzhia** or **Donetsk**.

*Ukrainian drones attack a Russian chemical plant that makes components for military explosives. Flames visible for dozens of kilometers. The smell of ammonia in the streets of a sleeping Russian city. This account of the night of June 25–26, 2026 illustrates an aspect of the war that Western media cover insufficiently: Ukraine's strategy of degrading the Russian war industry from inside enemy territory.*

*A chemical plant two hundred kilometers from Moscow making components for the shells landing on Kherson — that is the Russian war economy laid bare. Ukraine is not striking civilians. It is striking the industrial chain that kills its civilians. Those are not the same thing.*

## The raw facts of the night: what sources confirm

### Testimonies from Novomoskovsk residents

The **Telegram channels Exilenova+** and **Astra** — independent Russian information sources operating under pressure — were among the first to report the attack. Resident testimonies gathered in their publications describe **drones flying over the city at low altitude**, visible to the naked eye and filmed from windows and balconies. **Explosions** were heard "for **several hours**," suggesting either multiple attack waves or prolonged secondary explosions following the initial impacts.

The **ammonia smell** reported by residents is an important indicator. Ammonia is one of the base chemicals in the manufacturing of industrial and military explosives — including the components used in artillery charges. Its presence in the air following the strike confirms that chemical storage or processing facilities were damaged, not merely administrative buildings.

### Power outages and their implications

The **power outages** reported across several neighborhoods of **Novomoskovsk** following the strike may indicate either direct damage to the plant's electrical infrastructure, or preventive cuts imposed by the authorities to limit the risk of secondary explosions inside a damaged chemical facility. In either case, they reflect the scale of the attack's impact on local infrastructure.

Russian regional authorities published no official damage assessment in the hours following the strike, consistent with their standard practice of minimizing or publicly denying damage caused by Ukrainian strikes. This official silence is itself revealing of the scale of what occurred.

*When Russian authorities say nothing after a strike, it is often because what they would have to say is too embarrassing to admit. The official silence from Tula that night was deafening.*

## Novomoskovsk in the industrial geography of the war

### The Tula region: a historic hub of the Russian arms industry

The **Tula region** is not a random choice in the industrial geography of this war. Historically, **Tula** is the capital of the Russian arms industry — home to small arms production arsenals, ammunition factories and military research centers since the Soviet era. The **Azot Novomoskovsk plant** is embedded in this dense industrial fabric that makes the region a strategic supplier to the Russian war machine.

By targeting **Novomoskovsk**, **Ukraine** is not striking an isolated site — it is penetrating the heart of a military industrial cluster whose destruction or degradation would carry multiplier effects across multiple production chains simultaneously.

### The logic of targeting chemical precursors

**Military explosives** require specific chemical precursors that only a limited number of plants can produce. **Russia** has invested heavily in increasing its ammunition production since **2022**, but this increase depends on the availability of chemical raw materials. By targeting the plants that produce these precursors — such as **Azot** in **Novomoskovsk** or the **Orenburg** installations struck on **June 24** — **Ukraine** is attempting to create a **bottleneck** in the Russian ammunition supply chain.

*The ammunition war Russia has waged against Ukraine since 2022 has a hidden side: chemical plants in Tula, in Orenburg, in Novomoskovsk. Ukraine is beginning to strike that hidden side. That is where a war of attrition is won or lost.*

## Context: a week of coordinated industrial strikes

### June 22–28: a calendar of systematic strikes

The strike on the **Azot plant** is part of a series of operations that trace a clear pattern. On **June 22**, **Storm Shadow** missiles struck the **VZPP-S** semiconductor plant in **Voronezh**. On **June 24**, drones struck the gas processing complex and **Orenburg** helium plant, more than **1,200 kilometers** from the front — supplying helium for liquid-propellant missile engines and ethane for solid-fuel missiles. On **June 25–26**, **Azot in Novomoskovsk**. On **June 27–28**, the **Slavyansk ECO** refinery in **Krasnodar**.

This calendar is not random. It reflects coordinated operational planning that systematically targets **four industrial categories**: military semiconductors, missile fuels, explosive precursors, fuel refineries. Each week of the **40-day campaign** strikes a new link in the chain.

### The Orenburg helium plant strike: a telling precedent

The **June 24** strike on the **Orenburg** complex deserves special mention to understand the logic of **Novomoskovsk**. The **Orenburg helium plant** is **Russia's only helium producer** — helium being indispensable for **liquid-propellant missile engines** and for **guidance systems**. This complex has been struck at least **four times** in less than a year. Ukraine's persistence against this target illustrates the priority given to infrastructure with no easy substitute.

*Orenburg at 1,200 kilometers. Voronezh at 500. Novomoskovsk at 200. The map of Ukrainian strikes extends like a web across the full depth of Russia. Moscow is caught in the web.*

## What the Azot strike reveals about Ukrainian drone capability

### Drones capable of flying for hours over Russia's rear

The fact that **Ukrainian drones** hovered over **Novomoskovsk** — **200 kilometers** from the Ukrainian border — for **several hours** demonstrates several things about Ukrainian drone capability in **2026**. These aircraft successfully penetrated **Russian air defense systems** deep inside the territory, maintained prolonged flight over a heavily populated area, and struck specific targets inside an industrial complex. This triple demonstration is technically significant.

Russia's **air defense**, which has invested heavily in its systems since **2022**, is manifestly unable to intercept all Ukrainian drones penetrating deep into its territory. The high number of drones deployed in these raids, their flight at varied altitudes and trajectories, and the use of swarm tactics make exhaustive interception nearly impossible with available systems.

### Ukraine's drone industry: a documented build-up

Ukraine's capacity to conduct deep drone raids in **2026** is the result of a rapid industrialization of its domestic production. Reports published by **United24 Media** indicate that **Ukraine** launched a "**record wave of strikes**" on Russian defense industry in **June 2026**. This build-up is made possible by massive investment in local drone manufacturing, partially funded through international resources mobilized at the **Gdańsk** conference.

*Russia has spent billions on air defense systems. And Ukrainian drones worth a few thousand dollars each hover over Novomoskovsk for hours. The technological and economic asymmetry of this war continues to surprise.*

## Consequences for the Russian population and regime

### The smell of ammonia as a political signal

For the residents of **Novomoskovsk**, smelling **ammonia** in the air at **two in the morning** is not an abstract experience — it is the war entering their daily lives physically. Research on the psychological impact of conflicts on civilian populations shows that direct perception of threat fundamentally changes a population's relationship to the war. The Russian population, largely shielded from the direct consequences of the conflict since **2022**, is beginning to feel them concretely.

Power cuts, chemical odors, the sound of explosions in the night: these are exactly the experiences Ukrainians have been living for **four years**, since **2022**. The difference is that Russian propaganda can control the media narrative — but not the sensory perceptions of its own citizens.

### Pressure on morale and Putin's legitimacy

Each deep strike on Russian territory undermines the implicit social contract on which **Putin** has built his legitimacy since **2000**: the promise of security and stability. This promise rests on the conviction that **Russia** is large and powerful enough that conflicts always unfold far from its borders, on other people's territory. The strikes on **Novomoskovsk**, **Voronezh**, **Orenburg** and **Moscow** shatter that promise.

*Putin sold his people a short, victorious war against weak neighbors. Four years later, drones hover over Novomoskovsk for hours and people smell ammonia at two in the morning. That is not the war the Russians signed up for.*

## Outlook: the 40-day campaign and its timeline

### Forty days of pressure: the schedule through late July 2026

Approved on **June 25**, the **40-day campaign** extends through roughly the **first week of August 2026**. It covers the **NATO summit in Ankara** (July 7–8), a key moment for decisions on military aid to **Ukraine**. It also covers negotiations over a possible ceasefire, in a context where **Moscow** shows no sign of making concessions.

The logic of the campaign is clear: accumulate enough damage to the Russian war economy to alter **Putin**'s calculation on continuing the conflict. This is not a guarantee of result — but it is the most coherent strategy available to **Ukraine** with its current resources.

### What the rest of the campaign might target

If the pattern of the first two weeks is any guide, the rest of the **40-day campaign** will continue targeting specific industrial infrastructure: plants producing components for Russian drones and missiles, fuel storage and processing complexes, railway and road logistical hubs in Russia's interior. Every successfully documented strike also serves as an argument in the **Ankara** discussions on future military aid.

*Ukraine strikes with what it has, where it hurts the most. This is not perfect. Some strikes miss their targets. Some drones are shot down. But the pattern is consistent, the tempo is maintained, and results accumulate. That is all you can ask of an army fighting for its survival with the tools at hand.*

## Russia's chemical industry as a Ukrainian strategic target

### Azot Novomoskovsk and the military explosives supply chain

**Azot Novomoskovsk** produces **components for military explosives** — notably nitrated precursors used in the manufacturing of artillery munitions and rockets. Destroying or degrading this production capacity directly serves Ukraine's strategy of targeting the **Russian military supply chain**. The plant is not merely one industrial target among others: it is a node in the explosive supply network that feeds the shells fired daily against Ukrainian positions.

The ammonia smell reported by residents of **Novomoskovsk** and surrounding areas on the night of June 25–26 indicates a chemical containment breach — a sign of significant structural damage. The **power outages** that followed suggest that the plant's safety and control systems were damaged. These disruptions are not limited to the industrial sphere: they also signal to **Russian civilian populations** that the war now reaches their territory, their cities, their industries. This is a form of psychological pressure Ukraine is fully assuming.

### The impact on Russian munitions production: the arithmetic of war

Russia fires **tens of thousands of shells per day** at Ukrainian positions. This rate of fire consumes enormous quantities of explosives and propellants, which in turn require an uninterrupted chemical supply chain. Degrading a plant like Azot Novomoskovsk will not immediately reduce the Russian rate of fire — buffer stocks absorb short-term disruptions. But it creates **cumulative pressure** on the logistical chain that eventually manifests as reduced ammunition availability.

Ukraine has been systematically targeting these plants since 2023, and the effects are beginning to show in certain sectors. Russia has had to **import munitions** from North Korea to maintain its rate of fire — an external dependency that reflects tensions in its domestic production. Every plant struck deep in Ukraine's reach accelerates this dependence on imports, which are themselves subject to the vagaries of diplomatic relations and international scrutiny. This is a spiral of fragility that Ukraine is deliberately seeking to deepen.

## Conclusion: The war arrives in the Tula region — and no one can pretend otherwise

### What the Azot strike means strategically

The strike on the **Azot chemical plant in Novomoskovsk** on the night of **June 25–26, 2026** is not an isolated incident. It is the concrete illustration of a Ukrainian strategy aimed at carrying the cost of the war into the depth of Russian territory. By targeting **explosive precursors**, **Ukraine** attacks the raw material of Russian firepower. By striking **200 kilometers from Moscow**, it demonstrates that distance no longer offers protection.

For the residents of **Novomoskovsk** who filmed drones in the night and opened their windows to the smell of **ammonia**, the war is no longer something that happens "over there, in the east." It is here. That may be, in the long run, the most significant outcome of this entire campaign.

### Ukraine strikes the system, not just the targets

What distinguishes the **June 2026** strike wave from previous operations is its **systemic coherence**. Semiconductors, helium, explosives, fuel — **Ukraine** is striking interdependent elements of a single system: the Russian war economy. **Azot in Novomoskovsk** is a link in that chain. Its strike is a message as much as a military operation: **Ukraine** knows the chain, it knows where to hit, and it has the means to do so. **Putin** should begin to factor that in.

*The Azot Novomoskovsk plant was producing components for the explosives killing Ukrainian soldiers and civilians. It will no longer do so, at least for a few weeks. This is not a decisive victory. But it is a real, measurable victory in a war that is won as much in factories as in trenches. Ukraine has understood this. And its drones operate accordingly.*

**By Maxime Marquette, columnist**

## Columnist's transparency note

### Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a **columnist and analyst**. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. **I claim analytical clarity**, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

### Method and sources

This text keeps the basic distinction between **verified facts and interpretive analysis**. The rule never changes: a factual claim is published only when a verifiable source supports it, and the sources this article actually used are listed under **Sources**, never here.

**Primary source families** used by the publication, when the story has them: official statements from governments and international institutions, public statements by political leaders, reports from intergovernmental organisations, dispatches from recognised international news agencies.

**Secondary source families**: specialised publications, internationally recognised news media, analyses from established research institutions, reports from industry organisations.

When an article cites statistical, economic or geopolitical data, it comes from the institutions that produce it (intergovernmental organisations, central banks, national statistics offices), and the exact institution is named under **Sources**.

### Nature of the analysis

The analyses, interpretations and perspectives in the analytical sections of this article are a **critical, contextual synthesis** based on the information available, the trends observed and the expert comments cited in the sources consulted.

My role is to interpret these facts, to set them in the context of today's geopolitical and economic dynamics, and to give them a coherent meaning within the larger story of the changes shaping our time. These analyses reflect expertise built through continuous observation of international affairs and an understanding of the strategic mechanisms that drive global actors.

This article describes a documented state of affairs on its publication date, not a prediction: later developments may shift its outlook. No update is promised in advance; when an article is corrected or completed, the change is dated in the text.

## Sources

### Primary sources

- [Militarnyi — Drones strike Azot chemical plant in Novomoskovsk — June 26, 2026](https://militarnyi.com/en/news/drones-strike-azot-chemical-plant-in-novomoskovsk/)

- [Euromaidan Press — Ukraine strikes Russian helium and gas complex in Orenburg — June 24, 2026](https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/06/24/ukraine-strikes-russias-only-helium-plant-and-largest-gas-complex-1200-km-from-the-front/)

### Secondary sources

- [United24 Media — Record wave of Ukraine strikes on Russian defense industry June 2026](https://united24media.com/war-in-ukraine/ukraine-launches-record-wave-of-strikes-on-russias-defense-industry-in-june-20234)

- [Kyiv Independent — Zelensky SBU 40-day pressure campaign — June 25, 2026](https://kyivindependent.com/ukraines-sbu-to-wage-40-day-pressure-campaign-against-russia-zelensky-says/)

- [Pravda Ukraine — Zelensky approves SBU operation — June 25, 2026](https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2026/06/25/8041138/)

- [Kyiv Independent — Strike on Voronezh VZPP-S — June 22, 2026](https://kyivindependent.com/smoke-rises-above-voronezh-as-ukraine-strikes-key-russian-military-parts-factory/)

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Source: Maxime Marquette, MadMax. When citing, name the author and link https://mad-max.co/en/article/reportage-des-drones-ukrainiens-attaquent-l-usine-chimique-azot-de-novomoskovsk-