On October 25, drones attacked an industrial facility in the northern part of Russia’s Perm region. Five employees were injured in the strike, while Russian monitoring channels reported that the target may have been the VSMPO-Avisma plant in Berezniki, Russia’s largest titanium producer.
Russian media reported this, citing Perm region Governor Dmitry Makhonin and monitoring channels.
Makhonin confirmed a drone attack in the northern part of the region. According to him, an industrial facility sustained “minor damage” but continues to operate normally.
The governor did not identify the facility that was hit but reported that five employees had been injured.
Monitoring channels claim that the drones targeted the VSMPO-Avisma plant in Berezniki, approximately 200 kilometers north of Perm. There has been no official confirmation of this information.
VSMPO-Avisma is Russia’s largest titanium producer. According to the Exilenova+ monitoring channel, titanium alloys produced at the facility are used in the manufacture of military aircraft, aircraft engines, as well as missile and space technology.
Despite the company’s importance to Russian industry, neither the European Union nor the United States has imposed comprehensive blocking sanctions on it.
In September 2023, the United States introduced export restrictions on VSMPO-Avisma, but the company was not added to the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctions list.
This means there is no outright ban on doing business with the company, although US companies must obtain special licenses to trade with it.
In March 2024, The Washington Post reported that Western companies had purchased hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of titanium from Russia during the first two years of the full-scale war.
The extent of the damage to the facility in Berezniki and the impact of the attack on its production remain unclear.
