Fire hotspots lit up on NASA satellite imagery over Omsk on Monday evening. Ukraine’s military said its drones were responsible, hitting what it called Russia’s largest oil refinery, in the western Siberian region of Omsk.
The plant is run by Gazprom Neft and sits on the northern edge of the city, about 2,500 kilometers (1,550 miles) from the Ukrainian border. The Moscow Times described it as one of the deepest attacks on Russian territory since the full-scale invasion began.
“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 wrote on Facebook. It added that this refinery was “the last of the 11 largest gasoline producers in Russia that have been hit.”
Omsk region Governor Vitaly Khotsenko confirmed that “several drones” got through layers of Russian air defense and attacked the refinery. He did not say what, if anything, was damaged, only that emergency services had been sent to the site. Omsk had not come under Ukrainian drone attack at any point since the 2022 invasion.
Sources told Reuters the refinery processed around 23 million metric tons of oil last year.
Other targets the same day
Omsk was not the only strike Ukraine claimed on Monday. Its HUR military intelligence agency said a deep-strike operation hit the Slavneft-Yanos refinery in the Yaroslavl region, one of Russia’s five largest, roughly 700 kilometers (435 miles) from the border. The General Staff said it documented “explosions and smoke” there.
In the Leningrad region of northwestern Russia, Ukraine said it hit Novatek’s Ust-Luga natural gas complex on the Baltic Sea, along with a deployment point for a Russian missile brigade.
Ukrainian forces also reported attacks inside Russian-controlled parts of Ukraine. The targets there included one of annexed Crimea’s largest petroleum storage and shipment facilities, in the port city of Kerch, plus a key transport corridor and a drone warehouse in occupied Luhansk region.
