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Ukraine strikes Russian military plant supplying drone components, says Zelenskyy

Ukrainian Strike
Ukrainian forces used FP-5 Flamingo missiles to strike a military plant in Cheboksary, Russia, which produces components for drones and missiles.
Strategic Impact
Striking the VNIIR-Progress plant disrupts essential supply lines for Russian drone and missile capabilities, undermining military operations while showcasing Ukraine’s advanced strike capabilities over 1,000 km away.
Official Response
“We continue to apply Ukrainian long-range sanctions against Russian military facilities and the oil industry,” stated President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, announcing the successful strike on Cheboksary.

Kyiv hit Russian military plant using Ukrainian-made Flamingo missile, Zelenskyy says

Ukraine strikes Russian military plant supplying drone components, says Zelenskyy

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Kyiv used Ukrainian-made Flamingo missiles to strike a Russian military facility which supplies Moscow forces with components for drones and missiles, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed on Wednesday.

“We continue to apply Ukrainian long-range sanctions against Russian military facilities and the oil industry,” Zelenskyy said on X as he shared the video purporting to show a missile flying toward its target and plumes of smoke rising over Russian facilities.

“In particular, last night Ukrainian FP-5 Flamingos struck a military plant in Cheboksary that supplies the occupier’s army with components for drones and missiles.”

Cheboksary is the main city in Russia’s central Chuvashia region, located around 1,000 kilometres away from the Ukrainian border.

The regional governor, Oleg Nikolayev, confirmed the city had been hit.

“Early this morning, Cheboksary came under rocket attack. We are working to determine the number of casualties and the extent of damage to infrastructure,” Nikolayev said on Telegram without providing more details.

Local media outlets reported that the Ukrainian strike hit the VNIIR-Progress plant that produces antennas for drones. Ukraine’s General Staff also confirmed this target.

Sanctioned by Ukraine, the US and the European Union the VNIIR-Progress plant produces satellite navigation receivers and Kometa antennas used in Shahed-type attack drones, Kalibr cruise missiles, Iskander-M ballistic missiles, and guided aerial bombs.

The attack on Cheboksary was part of a broader Ukrainian attack that also struck the Kuibyshev oil refinery in Russia’s Samara region, more than 900 km from the front line, as well as two oil infrastructure facilities in Russia’s Vladimir region, 700 km away.

The Kuibyshev oil refinery processes around 3.7 million tonnes of oil annually and supplies fuel products used by Russia’s military-industrial sector and armed forces.

Flamingo missile made in Ukraine

Ukraine has developed its own missile called Flamingo but its use remains relatively rare.

First shown to the world in August 2025, the FP-5 Flamingo cruise missile is reported to have a strike range of up to 3,000 km and a warhead weight of up to 1,100 kg.

Flamingo’s parent company Fire Point said earlier in June that it has conducted a test flight of a ballistic missile that will serve as ​the foundation of a project to create a missile air ‌defence system.

The FP7.X is the interceptor variant of ⁠Fire Point’s FP7 ballistic missile, which is currently in development and which ​the company says will also be able to attack ground targets.

The missile itself is only one component of an air defence ‌system. ⁠Analysts say its most complex parts are the ground radar network and the targeting system in the missile.

But Fire Point management said the project’s goal is to create a unified pan-European secure air and missile defence system.

Fire Point’s ​co-owner Denys Shtilierman said few week ago that the company was in talks with unnamed European companies to launch a new air defence system capable of downing supersonic ballistic ​missiles by the end of next year, creating a low-cost alternative ​to the US-made Patriot.

‘Cheer up, you caught the bad guy,’ says killer Virginia McCullough as she is arrested for murdering her parents

A woman who murdered her parents “in cold blood” before hiding them in makeshift tombs for four years told officers to “cheer up, you caught the bad guy” as she was arrested in her home.

Virginia McCullough, 36, poisoned her father John McCullough, 70, with prescription medication and fatally stabbed her mother Lois McCullough, 71, shortly afterwards in 2019.

She ran up large debts on credit cards in her parents’ names and after their deaths, she continued to spend their pensions until she was finally caught in 2023.

In body-worn video footage released by police, a handcuffed – and eerily calm – McCullough told officers: “I did know that this would kind of come eventually.

“It’s proper that I serve my punishment.”

She said she had slipped something into her father’s drink then put his body under a bed on the ground floor, and put her mother’s body in an upstairs wardrobe.

McCullough, having been arrested on suspicion of double murder, told an officer: “Cheer up, at least you’ve caught the bad guy.”

She added: “I know I don’t seem 100% evil.”

At the police station, she told officers where a kitchen knife was, which she described as a “murder weapon”, and a hammer which she said “will still have blood on it”.

McCullough, of Pump Hill, Chelmsford, Essex, was sentenced to life imprisonment on Friday with a minimum term of 36 years at Chelmsford Crown Court, after she admitted to their murders between 17 and 20 June 2019 at an earlier hearing at the same court.

Chelmsford Crown Court heard how she hid their bodies in makeshift tombs at the family home in Great Baddow in Essex, then told persistent lies to cover her tracks.

The court heard she cancelled family arrangements and frequently told doctors and relatives her parents were unwell, on holiday or away on lengthy trips.

But concerns over Mr and Mrs McCullough’s welfare were raised in September 2023 by a GP at their registered practice, and Essex County Council’s safeguarding team referred these to police.

The GP had not seen the couple for some time and said Mr McCullough had failed to collect medication and attend scheduled appointments. It was found McCullough had frequently cancelled appointments, using a range of excuses to explain her father’s absence.

Police said a missing persons investigation was initially launched and McCullough lied to officers, claiming her parents were travelling and would be returning in October.

It became a murder investigation, and when officers forced entry to the house in Pump Hill on September 15 2023, McCullough confessed that her parents’ bodies were in the house and that she had killed them.

Nicola Rice, a specialist prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “McCullough callously and viciously killed both of her parents before concealing their bodies in makeshift tombs within their home address.

“She spent the next four years manipulating and lying to family members, medical staff, financial institutions, and the police, spending her parents’ money and accruing large debts in their name.”

She added: “This was a truly disturbing case, which has left behind it a trail of devastation, and I can only hope that the sentence passed today will help those who loved and cared for Lois and John begin to heal.”

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/virginia-mccullough-arrest-video-murder-parents-chelmsford-b2627978.html

Sarah Wilkinson
Sarah Wilkinson@swilkinsonbc
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Carol Voderman
Carol Voderman@carolvorders
Man of the right wing Nigel Farage taking more second jobs and freebie helicopter rides Gosh he’ll soon be a true blue Tory at this rate Or far far worse
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Defense alliance NATO chief Mark Rutte has met US President-elect Donald Trump to discuss global security issues, according to a NATO spokesperson.

The meeting took place in Palm Beach, Florida.

During his first term as US president, 2017-2020, Trump pushed for European NATO countries to spend more on defense and described the alliance’s cost-sharing as unfair to the US.

Rutte took over as NATO chief from Norwegian Jens Stoltenberg in November.

Before taking office in January, Trump has nominated Pete Hegseth for the post of defense secretary, which has raised eyebrows among many allies.

Hegseth, 44, has served as an infantry captain in Iraq and Afghanistan, but has no senior military or government officer experience.

Multiple missiles were fired in an airstrike towards a densely populated part of Lebanon’s capital early on Saturday.

The huge airstrike targeted Beirut’s Basta neighbourhood, and no prior warnings were given by the Israeli military. The largely residential area was struck last month.

At least one violent explosion was heard across the city, Reuters witnesses said, and plumes of smoke could be seen. Scenes of massive destruction at the site were shared online, including a massive crater in the ground.

“Beirut, the capital, woke up to a horrific massacre, as the Israeli enemy’s air force completely destroyed an eight-story residential building with five missiles on Al-Mamoun Street in Basta,” the state-run National News Agency reported.

The health ministry put the initial death toll at four, with 23 wounded. The number is expected to climb in the coming hours as search and rescue efforts continue.

It came after a long day of Israeli airstrikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs, which have been non-stop since last week.

The cross-border fighting between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group escalated into a full-blown war in mid-September.

Israel has bombed southern Lebanon, Beirut’s southern suburbs and the eastern Beqaa region, and has sent ground troops across the border. Hezbollah has continued to fire rockets deeper into Israel.

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