Russian air defenses shot down more than 100 Ukrainian drones Sunday over Russia’s western regions, Moscow officials said, while 17 people were injured in the Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih in a ballistic missile attack.

Ukrainian drones targeted a crucial Russian arms factory more than 500 miles from the border. The state-owned Sverdlov plant is one of the largest manufacturers of explosives used by Russian forces in the war.

To fill an urgent labor shortage, the Kremlin has been recruiting women from places like Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, South Sudan, Sierra Leone, and Nigeria, as well as Sri Lanka.

A satellite image shows a part of Lipetsk military airbase, after Ukraine said it hit the area, in this satellite image taken on August 9, 2024, in Lipetsk region, Russia. 2024 Planet Labs Inc/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo (Reuters) - Ukrainian forces attacked infrastructure at a military airfield in Russia's Lipetsk region and an explosives-manufacturing enterprise in the Nizhny Novgorod region,

Ukraine said on Oct. 20 that it attacked Russia's "largest explosives plant" and an airfield overnight, the latest in a series of long-range drone attacks in the rear to slowly grind down the bigger foe's powerful war machine from afar.

Ukraine launched more than 100 drones at several Russian regions overnight, according to Russia's Defense Ministry, as four people were injured in an apparent attack on one of Moscow's major explosives factories hundreds of miles from its western border.

These drone operations were coordinated by the SBU, Ukraine's military intelligence agency, and Special Operations Forces.

The source told the Kyiv Independent the drones targeted the large state-owned Sverdlov Plant in the city of Dzerzhinsk in the Nizhny Novgorod region, some 900 kilometers deep into Russia.

Ukraine targeted a major Russian explosives plant overnight as it sent hundreds of kamikaze drones into Vladimir Putin's territory.