Ukrainian drone strike targets strategic Russian aviation plant
On the night of January 20, Ukraine used long-range drones to attack the Kazan Aviation Production Association named after S.P. Gorbunov (KAPO) in Tatarstan. These plants manufacture Russian Tu-160M strategic bombers and Tu-214 passenger planes.
According to Ukrainian sources cited by Defence 24, the target of the attack was a specific building within KAPO – the "Mechanical Engineering and Instrument Production" facilities of KAPO-Kompozit.
The building was reportedly hit, and the explosions caused a nearby fuel depot to catch fire. Based on the available data, it's difficult to assess the scale of the damage, but it's presumed to be relatively small despite the fuel depot explosion.
This is because drones usually carry a relatively small warhead, and their construction is not designed to penetrate the interiors of buildings, resulting in explosions typically occurring outside, without damaging structural elements.
A successful attack on a strategic factory is undoubtedly a Ukrainian success. The attack on KAPO may be especially painful for Russia because the enterprise has been heavily funded in recent years to modernise the bomber fleet — including reviving the world's largest titanium parts processing plant.
Strategic bombers from Kazan
Although Russia boasts about delivering new units of its bombers to the air force, these planes are assembled with decades-old components. This is how strategic Tu-160s are produced, and since the much-publicised production resumption by Kremlin propaganda, at least four units have been delivered in the modernised Tu-160M/M2 variant.
One of them — the unit where Vladimir Putin took a flight — shortly after that event, had an accident in the spring of 2024, during which the aircraft's engines caught fire. The official plan is to introduce four more bombers into service by 2025, but given the current pace of production, this seems unlikely. Presently, Russia operates no more than a dozen units.
Also, in the case of Tu-22M3 in the Kazan plants, most likely — as evidenced by aerial photographs — several machines in the new Tu-22M3M variant were rebuilt using over 30-year-old airframes, which had been deteriorating for years at the facility's airport. Besides new and modernised bombers, KAPO also produces — at a rate of two units per year — the Russian Tu-214 passenger plane.
