Satellite imagery shows the damage Ukraine's Flamingo missiles inflicted on Russia's main rocket-assembly plant, the Ukrainian Telegram channel Exilenova+ reported on 18 August. The overhead photo show a collapsed roof section over a key hall at the Progress Rocket Space Center in Samara, a Russian city about 900 km from the war zone in Ukraine. It puts a measurable figure on damage Kyiv had until now only claimed.
The satellite photo centers the damage on building 106A, Exilenova+ said. Crews there wire the rockets' control systems, cabling and instrument bays. The imagery shows two missile hits on that hall, the channel reported.
The collapsed roof section runs 85 meters long and 35 meters wide. Ukraine struck the plant on 15 August with its home-built Flamingo cruise missiles, which President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed at the time.
Reported Flamingo strike hits Samara industrial area housing factory that builds rockets for Russia’s Starlink rival
A rocket hall with no domestic replacement
Progress is the only plant in Russia that serially assembles the Soyuz-2 rocket family, used to launch military reconnaissance and targeting satellites, Exilenova+ noted.
The plant also lofts the Rassvet satellites built by Bureau 1440, Russia's answer to Starlink. The country has no full alternative to the Samara site, they added. Next to building 106A stands 106B, the complex's final-assembly hall.
Ukraine's Fire Point company builds the Flamingo, a long-range cruise missile. Its growing reach lets Kyiv strike defense and space plants far from the front. Overhead imagery has exposed earlier Flamingo damage deep inside Russia.
