Aksaykardandetal factory fire and gas pipeline explosion near Penza — 13 October report

A large fire broke out on the grounds of the Aksaykardandetal factory in Aksay, Rostov Oblast. The monitoring channel Exilenova+ published footage showing thick smoke and flames above the industrial site.

According to the channel, the fire spread to 9,000 square metres and a storage building’s wall collapsed. The flames engulfed storage premises on the factory grounds.

Aksaykardandetal specialises in drive shafts and metal components. The factory has facilities for metalworking, laser cutting, stamping and heat treatment.

It remains unclear whether production lines and equipment were damaged. The extent of the losses and the impact on factory operations have not yet been established.

An explosion followed by a fire occurred on the underground Central Asia–Centre main gas pipeline near the village of Volchkovo in Belinsky District, Penza Oblast.

Exilenova+ shared photos and footage of the incident. The specialist energy publication ExPro reported that the flames may have reached about 70 metres in height. It also reported that gas flow through the damaged section had been shut off.

Central Asia–Centre is a network of main gas pipelines crossing Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Russia. It was built to transport Central Asian gas to Russia. Since 2023, part of the network has operated in reverse to supply Russian gas to Uzbekistan through Kazakhstan.

No figures are currently available for the volume of gas lost, the expected repair time or the impact on international supplies.

Ukraine’s Defence Forces struck a repair base for self-propelled launchers and transporter-loader vehicles of the Iskander-M missile system near Kondrinka in Kursk Oblast. The General Staff reported the strike on 13 October.

The same statement reported strikes on a radar station near Shkryabine in Bryansk Oblast, a fuel and lubricant storage facility near Dovzhansk and an ammunition depot near Rubizhne in temporarily occupied Luhansk Oblast, Ukraine.

The General Staff dated these operations to 12 October and overnight into 13 October 2026, without giving a separate strike date for each target. The extent of the damage to the repair base has not yet been detailed.

On the morning of 13 October, Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces published their results for the previous day — 12 October. Units in the grouping reported 2,045 enemy targets hit.

These included 78 drone launch sites, 24 storage facilities, 10 radar stations and electronic warfare assets, 94 vehicles and items of specialist and engineering equipment, and four artillery systems.

The forces also reported 443 Russian personnel killed or wounded, including 211 killed. For 1–12 October as a whole, the grouping reported 28,284 targets hit. This figure covers different types of combat operations and is not a count of long-range strikes on infrastructure.