Ukraine has targeted Russian energy facilities and a big oil refinery that feeds Vladimir Putin’s war machine in multiple waves of drone strikes, Kyiv has said.
The Ukrainian military said the strike on the refinery in Russia’s Nizhny Novgorod region had caused a large fire. A video posted on social media that showed orange flames lighting up the night sky in the city of Kstovo. Lukoil's Norsi refinery, Russia’s fourth largest, is based in Kstovo, which lies east of Moscow and about 800 km (500 miles) from the Ukrainian border.
Russia’s Defence Ministry claimed it had detected more than 100 drones in a major overnight attack, with the governor of the Smolensk region claiming one drone had been shot down near the largest nuclear power plant in Russia’s northwest.
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Reporting a “powerful fire” at the oil refinery in Kstovo, a city in Russia’s Nizhny Novgorod region, Ukraine’s military said on Wednesday morning that it was still clarifying the extent of the damage but vowed to continue its attacks on facilities involved in supporting Russia’s war.
A Ukrainian military intelligence source claimed to the Kyiv Independent that Lukoil’s depot in Kstovo was targeted by four drones, all of which hit their target and caused “significant damage”. A drone strike also hit Russia's Andreapol oil pumping station, part of an export route via the Baltic Sea port of Ust-Luga, causing a leakage of oil products and a fire, a source in the Security Service of Ukraine told Reuters.
The attack also hit a Russian missile storage facility in Russia's Tver region, causing a string of explosions, the source said.
Meanwhile, Russian petrochemicals giant Sibur said it had temporarily suspended operations at its plant in Kstovo on Wednesday morning, claiming that debris from a Ukrainian drone had caused a fire.
While Russia has targeted Ukrainian energy infrastructure throughout its near three-year invasion, forcing millions of civilians to endure power cuts through the winter, Ukraine has increasingly been striking back with attacks on energy facilities deep inside Russian territory in recent months.
The governor of Russia's western Smolensk region also claimed on Wednesday that air defence systems had destroyed a drone attempting to strike a nuclear power plant there. The plant was working normally, the RIA state news agency reported, citing its press service
The attack in Kstovo came just hours after reports that work at the Ryazan oil refinery – among Russia’s largest – had been suspended as a result of Ukrainian drone strikes.
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky has credited Kyiv’s booming drone production capacity with enabling the recent strikes, saying on Sunday: “I would like to thank all developers and producers of our long-range drones and missiles.
“Everyone can see their effectiveness. Our weapons are bringing the war back to Russia and reducing Russia’s military potential.”
With new US president Donald Trump also suggesting that Russia’s energy sector could be further squeezed in a bid to bring Mr Putin to the negotiating table, the Kremlin is showing no sign of easing its grinding push for territory in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region.
In its latest daily update, Ukraine’s military claimed to have inflicted a further 1,670 casualties among Russia’s forces, as it reported nearly 200 combat clashes along the front line.
The general staff of Ukraine’s armed forces said Russia had launched a ballistic missile and 57 drones in its latest overnight attack, as well as having carried out 33 airstrikes, fired more than 5,000 artillery shells, and deployed nearly 2,500 kamikaze attack drones over the 24 hours prior.
Ukraine’s state emergency service and Mykolaiv’s regional governor Vitaliy Kim said two women – aged 54 and 56 – had been killed in a missile strike on the food factory where they were working.
Russia’s Defence Ministry claimed to have shot down Ukrainian drones over nine regions, including Nizhny Novgorod, Smolensk, Tver, Bryansk, and in Kursk, where Ukrainian forces have gained a foothold since their surprise cross-border incursion last August.
In neighbouring Belgorod, regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov claimed a mother and her two-year-old child were killed in the Russian border region after a drone hit their family home.
Russian aviation watchdog Rosaviatsia also temporarily halted flights at the Kazan airport in Russia’s Republic of Tatarstan and at the Pulkovo airport in the Leningrad region. Flights have resumed since, according to Rosaviatsia’s Telegram statements.
Despite Kyiv’s advances in the production of long-range drones, Mr Zelensky’s defence minister Rustem Umerov on Wednesday found himself embroiled in a criminal investigation over a standoff in his ministry relating to arms procurement.
In a row which G7 ambassadors warned on Wednesday could jeopardise trust in Kyiv, Mr Umerov intervened last week to block the reappointment of the head of Ukraine’s Defence Procurement Agency, which he claimed had been failing to deliver for Ukraine’s frontline troops.
Mr Umerov’s critics claim his move was illegal, and the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine is now examining whether there was an abuse of power by Mr Umerov, as part of a criminal probe requested by a corruption watchdog. Mr Umerov denies any wrongdoing.
Additional reporting by Reuters
