MOSCOW, Nov 3 (Reuters) – Ukraine set fire to a major oil refinery in the Russian city of Yaroslavl in an overnight drone attack, the regional governor said, after the Russian military said it had downed 856 enemy drones across the country.
The Slavneft Yaroslavnefteorgsintez (YANOS) oil refinery, which was hit in the latest attack and which Ukraine has struck at least twice before, disrupting production, is located some 250 kilometres (155 miles) northeast of Moscow.
Mikhail Yevrayev, the governor, said that air defence forces had repelled an attack on the refinery involving 124 drones and that two employees had been injured.
“There has been damage to the refinery’s infrastructure. Emergency services are working to extinguish a fire,” he said in a statement on Telegram.
Unverified footage posted on social media showed big flames rising into a darkened sky and what appeared to be two smaller fires.
There was no immediate comment from Ukraine.
Kyiv has repeatedly struck Russian refineries in an effort to deprive Russia of resources to fund its full-scale war in Ukraine, causing widespread fuel shortages across the world’s biggest country earlier this year. Russia has responded by targeting Ukrainian energy infrastructure with missiles and drones.
The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Ukraine had paused its strikes on Russian refineries after pressure from US President Donald Trump, who had suggested before midterm US legislative elections that the attacks had contributed to higher diesel prices. Energy analysts said the US and Israeli war against Iran had been the main driver of the increase.
A Russian official said on Friday, however, that Ukraine had resumed strikes with attacks on three oil refineries and one gas-chemical complex in the Samara region. Gleb Nikitin, governor of the Nizhny Novgorod region, said on Sunday that an unnamed industrial facility in his region, home to the NORSI oil refinery, had been damaged in a drone attack.
The refinery in Yaroslavl has a processing capacity of around 15 million tons of crude oil per year. Publicly available information shows it produces gasoline, diesel and fuel oil.
(Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Andrew Osborn and Xevi Fontdegloria)
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