Ukrainian drones have struck an oil refinery in Russia’s Tyumen region over 1,200 miles away from its border, Volodymyr Zelensky has said.
In his nightly video address on Saturday, the Ukrainian president offered thanks to the military’s special operations in hitting the region in western Siberia, adding: “This is effective work.” He also said that Ukraine has developed new, modernised long-range drones capable of operating over more than 1,800 miles.
It came just days after Ukraine struck a major oil refinery in Moscow in its largest drone attack on the Russian capital since the start of the full-scale war.
The governor of Tyumen Region, Alexander Moor, earlier said that Russian air defences repelled a drone attack on the oil refinery. He said that according to preliminary reports, there was no damage and staff were evacuated.
The Tyumen refinery, one of the country’s most modern and complex, has a nominal capacity of around 8 million metric tonnes per year. It processes roughly 6 million tonnes of crude annually, producing about 0.5 million tonnes of petrol and 2.5 million tonnes of diesel, according to industry estimates cited by Reuters.
Ukraine’s military also reportedly struck an oil terminal in Kerch, in occupied Crimea, overnight into Sunday, according to Ukrainian media. Explosions were also reported in Yevpatoria, Simferopol and Sevastopol, as well as at an electrical substation in Bilohorsk.
Across the Kerch Strait, large fires were reported at the Kavkaz port on the Chushka Spit in Russia’s Krasnodar Krai region.
On Thursday, specks of black oil rained down on parts of Moscow after Ukraine hit the Moscow Oil Refinery, located just nine miles from the Kremlin.
“Oil rain” – contaminated rain – fell in parts of the Moscow region, including the Zheleznodorozhny and Lyuberetsky districts. Images and videos showed cars and windows coated in black specks, although Moscow authorities denied that any “oil rain” had occurred.
Close to 200 drones hit targets in the region, with one crashing into an apartment building in the Zhukovsky district. Debris from another strike sparked a fire at a shopping centre on the capital’s outskirts. Seventeen people were injured across the region, according to local governor Andrei Vorobyov.
A separate Ukrainian drone attack on Russia’s southern Rostov region left one person dead and at least two injured, local governor Yury Slyusar said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described the strikes in a social media post as a “fully justified response” to Russian attacks on Ukraine. It was the second time this week – and the third time in a month – that Kyiv had hit the refinery.
Moscow’s four airports were shut for hours, causing hundreds of flight delays. Sheremetyevo International Airport, the country’s busiest, said it had evacuated passengers to “safe locations” during the barrage before reopening at around 11am local time.
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Russian air defences shot down around 180 drones on approach to Moscow, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said, while the defence ministry reported it had intercepted more than 500 Ukrainian drones across the country overnight.
Kyiv has stepped up its drone strikes on Russia in recent months, hitting oil refineries that fund Moscow’s war effort, as diplomatic talks on ending the more than four-year conflict remain stalled.