Rostov damage tally widens as Koluzaevo declares local emergency

The damage followed the overnight attack of November 12–13, 2026. Governor Yury Slyusar said more than 120 drones were destroyed across Rostov-on-Don and ten districts. Ukraine’s military separately claimed Neptune missile strikes on three drone-related facilities in the city. Neither account independently establishes what caused the damage at each site, and the reported fires have not been conclusively matched to Ukraine’s claimed targets.⁠25⁠2

The interception figure is not a scorecard of the attack’s outcome. It describes what Russian authorities say they destroyed—not how many drones were launched, how many reached a target or how much military capacity was lost. The more tangible measures are the damaged homes, displaced residents and a large warehouse fire whose final status remains unresolved.

Koluzaevo, a hamlet in Azov district, shows how incomplete the first assessments were. Slyusar’s initial account identified four private homes with damaged roofs, doors and glazing, including one with a damaged gas pipe. At that stage, he reported no injuries or fires there. His later morning update put the wider Azov district total at five damaged private homes.⁠23⁠25

Then came the larger local assessment. Acting Azov district head Fyodor Kovtunov announced the emergency and a preliminary tally of 14 damaged residential properties and two vehicles, Kommersant reported on November 13. Inspectors were still going door to door. That newer count supersedes the earlier picture of the scale of damage, but its category—residential properties—does not necessarily count buildings in precisely the same way as the earlier private-home totals.⁠12

The distinction between damage and destruction matters, too. UA.NEWS’s November 13 report described five Azov district homes as destroyed. Interfax’s earlier report that day described four Koluzaevo homes as damaged; the governor’s subsequent statement explicitly said five private homes in Azov district were damaged. The changing count reflects successive assessments. The word “destroyed” is not supported by the governor’s wording, nor does the later tally establish that all 14 properties were destroyed.⁠1⁠3⁠25

In Rostov-on-Don, Slyusar reported five damaged apartment buildings citywide. His first description concerned broken windows in one five-story building in Oktyabrsky district, whose residents were evacuated. Temporary accommodation was opened for people from that building. The later total does not mean five five-story buildings were hit, and it does not establish that all five were high-rises, as UA.NEWS described them. The evacuation headcount and timetable for residents’ return have not been established.⁠23⁠25⁠1

Three passenger cars also caught fire in the city. Those are separate from the two vehicles later reported damaged in Koluzaevo; they should not be combined into a single local incident. The initial statement reported no injuries at the apartment building or the production facility. A later morning account identified the hospitalized Rostov resident, whose name, condition and injury mechanism remain unknown. An early absence of reported injuries was never a final regional casualty assessment.⁠23⁠12⁠5

The largest reported blaze was at a warehouse in Aksay district, also rendered Aksai in English. Slyusar put its area at 1,500 square meters, attributed it to falling drone debris and said casualty information was being checked. Separately, a damaged production facility in Rostov-on-Don’s Sovetsky district burned over 20 square meters.⁠23

Early reporting blurred that geography. The Kyiv Independent’s November 13 account grouped the production-facility and warehouse fires under the attack on Rostov-on-Don. Interfax’s report that day, quoting Slyusar’s detailed statement, located the large warehouse fire in Aksay district. The governor’s own account separates that warehouse from the production facility inside the city. Aksay residents’ reports of explosions followed by fire do not independently identify the building or prove a direct strike.⁠2⁠3⁠23⁠1

By morning, the governor said the Sovetsky production-site fire had been extinguished, along with the fire associated with residential damage. Neither statement settles the warehouse’s status. There is still no definitive warehouse casualty assessment or final fire update in the available reporting. Reassurances about other sites cannot be transferred to the much larger Aksay blaze.⁠25⁠23

Ukraine’s account adds a military dimension without resolving those site-by-site questions. Its General Staff said Neptune missiles struck Ionos’s tactical attack-drone production facility and storage site, plus Aero-Hit’s service center, where drones are repaired and maintained for the front. RBC-Ukraine reported that Aero-Hit manufactures Veles attack and reconnaissance drones in Khabarovsk; the claimed target in Rostov was its service center, not that manufacturing operation.⁠2⁠15

The stated objective was to disrupt production, storage and repair—the chain that keeps drones reaching the battlefield. But that is an attributed military account, not a verified measure of destroyed drones or lost production. No verified addresses or geolocated evidence in the available reporting connect those three claimed targets to the two fires Slyusar described. Missile strikes and drone interceptions may have occurred during the same night; the evidence does not establish a single weapon or cause for every damaged site.⁠2⁠15⁠23

For residents, the night was less about identifying weapons than deciding when to shelter. Regional emergency authorities issued the first missile-and-drone warning at 18:54 local time on November 12. Missile danger was lifted, renewed and lifted again during the evening. The drone all-clear came at 08:47 the following morning—nearly fourteen hours after the first warning, though not fourteen hours of continuous missile alerts or explosions.⁠5

A resident identified as Maria told Kommersant she woke to an explosion, then saw a bright flash followed by three loud explosions. She sheltered in the bathroom for about 40 minutes. Another resident, Vladimir, described searching online for information before sheltering between rooms and remaining awake afterward, afraid of another strike. Some residents said they had heard neither sirens nor the characteristic sound of drones. Those accounts do not prove a citywide warning-system failure, but they expose the practical problem of knowing when danger has become immediate.⁠5

Emergency instructions urged people to leave exposed outdoor areas, use underground passages or parking facilities as shelter, keep away from debris and report it through 112. Slyusar warned residents away from windows and reiterated the region’s prohibition on photographing or filming drone attacks and posting the material online.⁠5⁠23

Regional prosecutors were overseeing assistance and the protection of affected residents’ rights by morning. The immediate tests are now concrete: completing Koluzaevo’s inspections, providing accommodation and help, establishing the hospitalized man’s condition, and accounting for the Aksay warehouse. Two extinguished fires are resolved incidents within an aftermath that is not yet resolved.⁠5⁠12⁠25