The process of closing shopping malls in order to expand production capacities for drones continues in the Russian Federation. First, this happened in Izhevsk city, where drone manufacturers, part of the Kalashnikov Concern, bought two shopping malls for their production, and now similar events are taking place in Ryazan.
According to local media, the Solnechny shopping mall, located in the northern suburbs, was bought out at the end of 2024 by the Superkam company, which obliged all tenants to vacate the premises by January 31, 2025. The reason for this requirement is indicated as: "change in the profile of the activity".
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In particular, the Solnechny shopping center has a total area of 17,250 m², but the entire territory on which it is located is 80 thousand m², which provides further expansion opportunities. At the same time, the shopping center building already has all the necessary infrastructure and networks to organize the production of drones in a short time.
It should be noted that the Supercam company is the manufacturer of the Supercam reconnaissance UAV line, which the russians are actively using on the frontlines of the russia-Ukraine war. In particular, one of the most famous drones of this company is the Supercam S350 UAV. This drone has a declared flight range of 240 km and a communication range of 70-100 km. The company also previously stated that it produces heavy multicopters for russia’s military.
The Supercam company is part of the Unmanned Systems group of companies, which previously announced plans to start producing attack drones too. So they need to have additional production capacities to implement their plans.
The Superkam company is also registered and operates in the city of Izhevsk, where previously the Aeroscan (part of Zala) as well as the Izhevsk Unmanned Systems companies, which are part of the Kalashnikov Concern, repurposed two shopping centers ("Stolitsa" and "Italmas") for the production of unmanned systems and components for them. Probably, in Izhevsk there is no longer any cheap space for similar needs, and therefore the Superkam company was forced to look for a place to deploy its additional production facilities in other cities of russia.
It can be stated that the choice of Ryazan for the case is quite strange, because if the distance from Ukraine to Izhevsk is over 1200 km, then to Ryazan - only 460 km, which creates additional threats to Russian military facilities. In particular, on Friday night, On January 24, Ukrainian drones carried out a successful strike on facilities in Ryazan.
Given the location of production facilities for the production of military equipment in the Solnechny trade center in Ryazan, it becomes a legitimate military target that must be destroyed by the Defense Forces of Ukraine.
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