Ukrainian drone attack ignites fire, forces shutdown of major Russian refinery on Black Sea coast
Owned by Rosneft, Russia's leading oil company, the refinery is listed among Russia's top ten and is the lone petrochemical plant on the Black Sea coast. Representatives from Rosneft chose not to comment on the incident.
3:56 PM EST, January 26, 2024
The Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) acknowledged the attack on the refinery on Thursday. "The SBU has been targeting deep within the Russian Federation. We aim to continue these attacks on facilities that are not only important to the Russian economy but also provide fuel for enemy forces," stated an anonymous source speaking to Reuters.
This attack counts as another in a recent series of Ukrainian-launched strikes against Russia's energy infrastructure.
On January 8, a railway track explosion in Nizhny Tagil, within the Sverdlovsk region, alarmed Russian authorities due to its proximity to Gazprom Neft corporation facilities. The following day, an unmanned drone targeted a tank within the Oriolneftproduct oil storage facility in the Oryol region.
Then, on January 18, Ukrainian military intelligence (HUR) announced the conduct of a drone strike on a fuel base located in the Leningrad region, a place situated over 497 miles from the Ukrainian border.
An oil storage facility in the Bryansk region, along the border of Ukraine, suffered a drone attack on January 19. Two days later, on January 21, drones struck the terminal of Novatek, Russia's largest producer of liquefied gas, in Ust-Luga on the Baltic Sea.
