Ukraine launched a salvo from its new Peklo cruise missile drones to hit suspected military headquarters in occupied Donetsk, news reports and social media content from the Russian-occupied city confirmed on Monday.
The strike by at least five of the weapons battered the premises of a disused electronics plant in an industrial area of Donetsk, a city occupied by Russia during its first invasion of Ukraine in 2014.
Video recorded from several viewpoints showed the jet-propelled missiles diving in to hit and detonate. Multiple sources confirmed at least five strikes with major explosions taking place over a period of less than 30 seconds, shortly after 7:30 pm local time.
The Ukrainian weapons were not engaged by air defense fire as they bore in, social media video, photos and comment attested. Some minutes after the five explosions, a single anti-aircraft missile trail was visible above the city, with scattered small arms fire was audible.
Russia’s Ministry of Defense in its daily report of combat activity across the front on Tuesday claimed air defenses overnight had shot down 31 Ukrainian long-range drone strikes in engagements within seven western regions of the Russian Federation, but did not mention either the strike or the shooting down of Ukrainian drones over the city during the Monday evening attack.
Post-strike images showed gray mushroom clouds and two fires rising over the site. One geo-located video showed an attacking missile with a silhouette closely matching that of a Ukrainian Peklo (Hell) missile diving in to hit a building, part of the former Joint Stock Company Topaz, before detonating in a fiery orange ball.
The strikes targeted three building complexes on the territory of the Topaz, during pre-war days a major manufacturer of military electronics, independent analysts confirmed.
Ukrainian milbloggers and mainstream media reported three Russian command posts had been hit and damaged by the jet-propelled drones. In the wake of the attack images appeared, initially in Donetsk-connected chat groups, of missile debris consistent with components used in the Peklo.
A few early reports suggested that the attacking missiles were Storm Shadow cruise missiles. Kyiv Post analysis found that missile speed, attack profile and shape was typical of the Ukrainian Peklo and different from the Anglo-French missiles.
Propeller-driven drones similar to the Ukrainian Liutyi drone were also spotted in the sky above Donetsk, but the ground strikes seemed to have been carried out by jet-propelled drones.
Ukrainian military observers identified two headquarters by name and unit as hit and damaged: the command post of the 41st Combined Arms Army, a major area command responsible for Russian army combat operations in the central eastern front, and the command post of the 20th Guards Motor Rifle Division, a major fighting formation currently participating in attacks against Ukrainian positions to the west of Donetsk.
The Topaz building cluster, which was formerly the Research Institute of Complex Automation, was struck by two Peklos, the independent censor.net news agency reported with video available on open sources supporting the report.
Kyrylo Sazonov, a Ukrainian army officer a frequent milblogger, in Telegram post about the Donetsk strike on Monday evening said: “Donetsk is being heavily bombarded with various targets, but the Topaz plant is definitely a priority… It was a Soviet military-industrial complex, there is simply plenty of room there for warehouses, workshops, and personnel. That is, the target is big. But information is leaking out that there was also a headquarters there, where someone with very high shoulder boards was sitting.”
Ukraine announced it had begun serial production of the Peklo drone, a cruise missile-like unmanned aerial vehicle propelled by a jet engine, in December 2024. At the time Kyiv claimed it intended to produce about 100 of the weapons a month, but the Peklo has rarely been seen since then, although the first confirmed use was in June.
Ukrainian officials in meetings with NATO representatives in early 2025 stated the Peklo has a 700-kilometer (440-mile) range flying at 700 kph (440 mph), and is produced domestically using 70 percent Ukrainian components. The size of the warhead is a Ukrainian military secret but some estimates put it at around 50 kilograms (110 pounds), the Ukrainian military research group Militarnyi reported.
Pro-Russia Donetsk-based media covered the after-effects of the strike in detail and confirmed jet-propelled drones that were almost certainly Ukrainian Peklos had hit the city, but those reports omitted information about the number of hits or damage caused to Russian military targets.
According to the local TV channel TV Donetsk, the Ukrainian attack killed two civilians, injured sixteen, and damaged 18 buildings, claiming none of which were used by the military. Among structures reportedly struck and damaged was a local government office, a school and a kindergarten, an auto parts store and apartment hi-rises and private homes.
Although the Donetsk headquarters appeared to be the main target for long-range Ukrainian drone attacks Sept. 8-9, other penetrations of Russian airspace by unknown aircraft, followed by ground explosions, were reported elsewhere in Russia overnight.
Local media reported a probable attack in the vicinity of an oil refinery and fuel storage site near the Black Sea resort city of Sochi to which the fire department responded. Regional governor Veniamin Kondratiev said one civilian died in a statement without offering details of where the drone or drones hit or damage caused.
Ukraine’s UNIAN news agency reported that the presidential plane usually used by Russian leader Vladimir Putin had at the time of the strike been parked at Sochi airport. Putin’s current whereabouts were not known but there was no evidence he had been targeted or hit in the strike, the report said.
In Russia’s western Belgorod region, near the village Prokhovka, Ukrainian drones struck and set an oil refinery on fire, both Ukrainian and Russian media reported. The Belgorod region governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said that emergency response teams were on the scene and that the situation was under control in a Tuesday morning statement. Images from the NASA-run FIRMS world fire watch satellite network on Tuesday showed more than a half of the Prokhovka refinery in flames, with the most intense fires centered on the facility’s fuel storage reservoirs.
Ukraine launched a campaign to degrade Russian crude-oil processing capacity at the end of the July by attacking oil refineries in European Russia with long-range drones. A reported 13 major plants have been hit since then, some two or three times.
Kyiv Post has estimated the strikes have reduced Russian Federation oil-processing capacity by at least 20 percent. Refinery shutdowns and knock-on gasoline shortages and supply outages had been reported in Samara, Buryatiya, the Far East, on Sakhalin Island. Retail fuel deficits in the major cities Moscow and Petersburg were first reported on Monday.
Donetsk, on Monday evening. Most sources reported one or more Russian army headquarters at the Topaz facility had been targeted.