Russia’s largest oil refinery in Siberia has been struck by Ukrainian drones in one of the deepest attacks on Russian territory since the full-scale invasion. According to the Ukrainian military on Monday (July 6), the Gazprom Neft-operated refinery, located on the outskirts of the city of Omsk, western Siberia, was shown in NASA satellite imagery and social media footage to be on fire in multiple places.
The refinery is located about 1,550 miles (2,500km) from the border with Ukraine. “An impact with subsequent fire was recorded on the territory [of the refinery]. The extent of the damage is being verified,” Ukraine’s General Staff said in a statement on Facebook. “This is the last of the 11 largest gasoline producers in Russia that have been hit.” The strikes mark the first time the Omsk region has come under a Ukrainian drone attack since the 2022 invasion.
Omsk region Governor Vitaly Khotsenko confirmed that “several drones” had broken through layers of Russian air defence and attacked the refinery, with emergency services dispatched to the scene, The Moscow Times reported. The refinery processed around 23 million metric tons, or 460,000 barrels, of oil daily last year, according to Reuters.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s HUR military intelligence agency said Monday that it carried out a deep-strike operation that hit one of Russia’s five largest refineries, the Slavneft-Yanos refinery in the Yaroslavl region, some 435 miles (700km) from the border with Ukraine.
Ukraine’s General Staff said in a separate statement that it documented “explosions and smoke” at the refinery.
In northwestern Russia’s Leningrad region, Ukraine said it struck the Novatek natural gas producer’s Ust-Luga complex on the Baltic Sea and the deployment point of a Russian missile brigade.
Ukrainian forces said they also carried out multiple attacks in Russian-controlled parts of Ukraine, including one of annexed Crimea’s largest petroleum storage and shipment facilities in the port city of Kerch, as well as a key transport corridor and a drone warehouse in the occupied Luhansk region.
In recent months, Ukraine has been attacking Russian oil refineries to destroy the Kremlin’s main source of war revenue and directly cut off the specialised diesel and aviation fuel required to power Russia’s tanks and fighter jets. These relentless drone strikes have successfully knocked out roughly a third of Russia’s refining capacity, triggering a severe domestic energy crisis.
As a result, more than half of Russia’s regions – including occupied Crimea – have been forced to ration fuel, leading to massive queues at petrol stations, stranded transport vehicles and a booming black market. In a humiliating blow to its status as an energy superpower, Russia has been forced to ban its own gasoline exports and import fuel from neighbouring countries just to keep its domestic economy running.
