Serbian Minister Nenad Popovic owns a plant in Chuvashia, Russia, which has led to the region being targeted by ukranian drone strikes

Chuvash Republ is being bombed.

Why would Ukraine target a factory here? And who is actually profiting from this war while putting the whole region at risk?

It all started last year, on the morning of June 9. Drones struck “VNIIR-Progress“ — a facility just minutes from the city center, right next to “MTV Center“, one of Cheboksary’s largest malls. Luckily, no one was killed. The head of the republic said production was temporarily shut down. But that was far from the end of the story.

In reality, the factory was reinforced. The walls were strengthened. A tight security checkpoint was installed. Electronic warfare systems were set up — the kind that can knock Ukrainian drones off course by scrambling their navigation. And the attacks kept coming: in December alone, there were two more. But the drones don’t hit the factory anymore — they blow up everything around it.

In December, the first people were injured. Two were left in critical condition — and no one knows what happened to them after that. One of the severely wounded was likely a police officer. After the first strike, he blocked off the street and kept shouting through a megaphone, warning people that a second hit might be coming. He stayed there until the very end — and didn’t make it out in time.

The way the republican authorities handled the attacks looks, to put it mildly, strange. The head of the republic Oleg Nikolayev never once showed up at the strike site or spoke to people — even though he claims he did. And Leonid Cherkesov, the head of the Chuvash parliament and the ruling party’s top man in the region, posted this on his Telegram channel after the factory was hit:

After the first attacks on Cheboksary and other parts of the republic where defense plants are located, the authorities started shutting down the internet. Over the New Year holidays, Chuvashia went into a full-on blackout: mobile internet was gone for 16 days. And officials barely explained anything, supposedly to “avoid panic.”

The Chuvash government estimated the damage from the latest strike at 20 million rubles. That’s just to repair 15 damaged buildings — 10 of them residential. About 9 million rubles, according to official numbers, were paid out to victims.

So what is actually going on at the “VNIIR-Progress“ plant? Why is this target so important that Ukraine is willing to send drones thousands of kilometers to hit it? Why aren’t the Chuvash authorities evacuating the facility, instead choosing to shield it with people’s homes? And who is making huge money off all this? Let’s break it down.

This war became the first one where drones aren’t just a side tool — they’re one of the main weapons. At first, they were small frontline UAVs used for reconnaissance, hitting infantry, or attacking heavy equipment. Over the years of fighting, hundreds of thousands of gigabytes of video have piled up — soldiers’ deaths recorded almost in real time.

And already in the first months of the war, it became clear: there would be more and more drones. Both Russia and Ukraine started developing UAVs capable of flying hundreds and even thousands of kilometers — striking deep inside enemy territory. Russia adapted Iranian Shahed drones, turning them into the “Geran” and “Geran-2.” Ukraine responded by creating a long-range drone called “Liutyi.” Those are the ones that now make it all the way to Cheboksary.

When the first strike on “VNIIR-Progress“ happened, even the Ukrainians themselves said what the target was. They wrote that the plant produces “Kometa” and “Kometa-M” antennas. And it looks like that was true — the same information had been openly published on the company’s own website. These antennas protect drones and guided weapons from electronic warfare, allowing them to stay on course and hit their targets more accurately. That’s exactly why VNIIR ended up under U.S. sanctions. And just a few days later, the plant’s real owner was sanctioned as well. Who that person is — and who he’s connected to — is probably the most interesting part of this story. But first, let’s look at what’s so special about these “Kometa” systems.

VNIIR actively promoted the product. The antenna was shown at all kinds of industry forums and round-table events.

At first, the system was installed on Orlan drones. And it turned out it actually worked — it could get around Ukrainian electronic warfare. Soon, “Kometa“ antennas were being fitted to other UAVs too — “Grifon“, and of course “Geran“ and “Geran-2“. Today, they’re even mounted on aerial bombs — the so-called FABs. And according to some reports, even on ballistic missiles launched from Iskander systems.

Put simply: right next to a shopping mall, in the middle of residential neighborhoods, there’s a factory producing one of the most critical antenna systems for the entire Russian military. And none of this is secret. On the contrary — the plant’s management actively markets it, pitches it to the Defense Ministry, shows it off at expos, and literally advertises it on their website. No one can count how many Russian drones and bombs have been sent into Ukraine by now. But if even every second munition carried a “Kometa“ antenna, the manufacturer wouldn’t just be making huge money — they could have built a brand-new plant anywhere they wanted. If they felt like it, they could have literally moved half of Cheboksary to Sochi.

Not every bomb that flies into Ukraine explodes. Ukrainian troops have recovered intact “Kometa“ units, removed them, and even installed them on their own drones. Look closely at the antenna — it carries the VNIIR logo.

The reaction from the plant’s owners and the authorities to the strikes on Cheboksary has been basically zero. VNIIR never commented on the attacks, never helped the residents who were hurt, and isn’t even talking about moving the factory to a safer location away from the city.

Now to the main question: who actually owns this plant? Who stays in the shadows while the city takes the hits? A Putin-era oligarch? A government official? A foreign investor? Maybe a friend of the president of Chuvashia?

Meet Nenad Popović — an oligarch who built his fortune on the privatization of Yugoslav and Soviet-era companies. Today he is Serbia’s Minister of International Economic Relations and the leader of the Serbian People’s Party, a political force that fully supports the current government. From the outside, though, it often looks like it defends Putin more than it defends Serbia.

So how did Popović end up owning VNIIR? Good question. In 2001, the plant was taken over by ABS Electro, a company controlled by Popović. And here’s a detail that explains a lot: in interviews, the Serbian oligarch has said that he first met Vladimir Putin in Cheboksary — during a visit to “VNIIR-Progress“.

Here’s a quote from the show Naked Life:

“When I saw him — it was my first time in Chuvashia, and we were in a group of businessmen with him — I immediately thought this was a man who could do something big. He had such a strong, striking look, and his manner was completely different from the kind of people who come out of closed security services.”

ABS Electro, like Popović’s other businesses, is registered through offshore companies. At the same time, the Chuvash authorities seem eager not to highlight their ties to the oligarch. When Popović last visited the plant, it wasn’t him who handed out awards to standout employees — it was the president of Chuvashia at the time, Mikhail Ignatiev. Popović himself spoke at the event not as the owner of the factory, but modestly, as Serbia’s minister of economy.

Thanks to its offshore structure, the company pays less tax — both in Chuvashia and in Serbia. That’s what allows the owner to comfortably remain a high-ranking official in Belgrade. His party has its own members in the Serbian parliament, and Nenad Popović himself regularly speaks at United Russia conventions. But ten years ago, a scandal broke out: the Panama Papers were leaked, giving journalists access to millions of internal offshore documents.That’s when it became public that Popović holds Swiss residency and that the combined assets of his offshore companies are worth around $100 million.

Now back to Chuvashia. One person who can explain how VNIIR ended up in Popović’s hands is the republic’s first president, Nikolai Fyodorov. In 2014, already serving as Russia’s minister of agriculture, Fyodorov went on a working trip to Germany and posted a photo of himself stepping off a private jet. There was just one problem: the plane wasn’t owned by the ministry. When the media noticed, the photo was quickly edited — in the new version, Fyodorov was literally stepping out of darkness. But it was too late. Journalists from “Novaya Gazeta“ found out that the jet belonged to Nenad Popović.

That trip was likely not the only “gesture of attention.” Otherwise, it’s hard to explain why today the regional authorities completely ignore a factory that is putting the entire city at risk. There are no public questions, no demands to the owner — neither from the head of Chuvashia nor from United Russia.

Popović also has a direct political presence in Cheboksary. A former CEO of “VNIIR-Progress“, Pavel Litvinenko, now sits in the city council. For his work at the plant, he even received a state award — “For Services to the Fatherland“. In this system, business, politics, and personal connections are tightly intertwined — and the decision to stay silent about the factory during the attacks no longer looks like an accident.

The scariest part of this story is the price tag. For supplying “Kometa-M“, Popović ended up facing only U.S. sanctions. The authorities of Chuvashia aren’t demanding any compensation. Not a word about relocating the plant. Not a word about the owner covering even part of the costs. There is only massive profit — from every drone and every bomb.

All this time, Popović has been carefully building the image of a deeply religious man who claims to care about the future of Orthodoxy and of all Slavic peoples. In 2023, for example, he brought a miraculous icon from Mount Athos — “The Nursing Mother of God” — to Chuvashia for the celebrations.

And all the while, his factory is producing components for drones that are right now hitting civilian targets in Ukraine — cutting electricity and heating for entire cities. Thousands of Orthodox families go weeks without warmth. There’s no sugarcoating it — Popović wants this war to go on forever. He’ll never make this kind of money again. And the lives of Ukrainians or Russians? He simply doesn’t care.

Formally, Popović is under sanctions. But in practice, he seems to have lost nothing. Here he is, standing next to the presidents of Russia and Serbia in Beijing.

In Serbia itself, he has long been accused of illegal privatizations and the collapse of local industries. His offshore empire is valued in the hundreds of millions — and that’s before the war, when Kometa systems weren’t yet in such massive demand.

Against this backdrop, one thing is clear: the risks stay with Cheboksary, while the profits go to someone living in a completely different world.

In the middle of the city sits a factory that’s strategically important for the war. It doesn’t just ignore safety — it openly leaves its logos on the antennas. “VNIIR-Progress“ is protected by every possible means, while everything around it is at risk. People suffer. The economy suffers. Internet gets cut for half a month. And Nenad Popović profits — a pro-Putin oligarch living in Serbia! A man who, by some strange coincidence, rides on private jets of Russian officials while running a pro-Putin party in Serbia.

The authorities of Chuvashia pretend everything is fine: they stay silent, don’t ask the owner any questions, and spend public money on repairs — instead of eliminating the source of the threat. And Popović keeps making money.

It’s time to call this out! How long are we going to hide a military factory behind residential buildings? Why is the city paying such a price? For the so-called security of the country — or so a man swimming in money can get even richer?

Over the years, Popović has gotten so rich in Chuvashia that he could build five kindergardens every year and still turn a profit. It’s time to move from outrage to action. To evacuate or shut down VNIIR. As long as this war-profiting oligarch lives free and unpunished, the war will continue.