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Today, the biggest news comes from the Russian Federation.
Here, Ukraine’s long-range drone campaign has achieved phenomenal results, effectively dismantling a fifth of Russia’s oil refining system. What began as small-scale probing raids has now evolved into a sustained large-scale campaign aimed at dismantling Russia’s ability to refine oil on a national scale.
The hardest-hit region is Samara, as a swarm of 29 drones struck the Kuibyshev refinery, one of Russia’s largest fuel producers, followed by a series of repeat attacks that stalled repair efforts and forced an extended shutdown. Fires erupted across hydrogen plants, storage tanks, and distillation units, knocking the facility entirely offline.
Just days later, the nearby Syzran refinery was struck in a coordinated follow-up that damaged its AVT-6 unit and major reservoirs. Both sites were hit six times within 6 weeks, with the latest strikes targeting replacement components and delaying any meaningful progress on repairs.
In Saratov, Ukrainian drones returned three times in under three weeks to strike storage terminals and transfer pipelines, effectively resetting damage just as restoration began.
The Ilsky and Afipsky refineries in Krasnodar Krai were also struck five times total within the last 6 weeks, completely disrupting output. The most recent hits damaged newly installed cracking and catalytic reforming units, suggesting Ukraine is not only degrading capacity but actively working to keep these sites nonfunctional.
Across these locations, the rhythm of repeated strikes is now core to the campaign: plants are not just damaged, they are being systematically kept offline. Russian authorities have already started avoiding publishing full repair timelines, likely to obscure the scale of internal disruption and deny Ukraine further insight into the opportune moments to strike. These are not isolated events, as over the past two months, Ukraine has struck at least 15 major oil sites, including refineries and pumping stations across Russia.
Conservative estimates suggest over 21 percent of Russia’s total refining capacity has been damaged or disabled in the past two months alone. In Volgograd, Ukraine hit a refinery that processes over 15 million tons of crude annually, the largest in southern Russia. The strike sparked multiple fires across processing units, forcing an emergency shutdown that halted operations at Russia’s largest refinery in the south.
In Ryazan, fires broke out in two of the highest-capacity refining modules, the AVT-4 crude distillation unit and ELOU-AT-6 atmospheric-vacuum unit, which were both damaged; together they account for much of the plant’s daily output. Satellite imagery of the Volgograd and Ryazan strikes confirmed extensive fires and damage to refining towers and storage tankers, indicating successful penetration of core infrastructure.
At Kirishi, one of the largest refineries in northwest Russia, the damage done by an unknown number of Ukrainian drones reduced output by up to 40 percent.
In Ufa, one of the densest fuel-producing hubs in the country, Ukraine struck two refineries just kilometers apart, as both the Bovo-Ufimsky and Salavat refineries were hit. At Salavat, Ukraine set fire to the AVT-4 cracking unit, which processes heavy crude into gasoline and diesel, making it essential for both military and civilian fuel supplies across the region. In Bashkortostan, more than 1,400 kilometers from Ukraine, the Gazprom Salavat plant was damaged in a rare long-range drone strike that bypassed early warning systems completely.
Ukraine also hit targets even deeper, in the Komi Republic, drones struck near Ukhta, the first confirmed attack on infrastructure linked to Russian Arctic oil flow, and until now, this region was considered well beyond feasible drone range.
Pumping stations and pipelines have also become targets, as in the Vladimir region, the Vtorovo pumping station was hit three separate times, knocking out part of the diesel supply line to the Moscow ring. In a separate operation, Ukrainian drones hit the Kuibyshev-Tikhoretsk pipeline network, setting fire to pumping nodes and temporarily halting flows to the Novorossiysk export terminal. In practical terms, this has the same effect as striking a refinery; if oil cannot be moved in or out, production and output halt completely.
Multiple rounds of strikes not only prolong outages but also exhaust local emergency response teams, and Russia’s rushed attempts to restart operations after each attack are often exploited by Ukraine, which, at times, follows up with strikes to destroy newly installed components before they can enter service.
Overall, the effects are compounding, as Russia is not only losing core refining capacity but also the backup systems that once gave it room to absorb such low blows. The slow pace of repairs, coupled with legal limits on refinery protection, leaves these sites vulnerable, and Ukraine can exploit these changes.
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