Ukrainian forces hit the Omsk oil refinery overnight, about 2,500 kilometers (around 1,550 miles) from the Ukrainian border, the General Staff said on July 6. Fire broke out at the site.
The General Staff described Omsk as the biggest refinery in Russia by capacity, handling more than 21 million metric tons of crude a year. By its count, it was the last of Russia’s 11 largest gasoline producers that Ukrainian forces had not yet reached. The plant makes fuels, lubricants and petrochemical products, and the military said it helps supply Russian troops. Its refining depth is around 99%, one of the highest in the country.
What was hit
Preliminary information points to the ELOU-AVT-11 primary oil refining unit, according to the General Staff. That unit is designed to process 8.4 million metric tons of crude per year. The full extent of the damage was still being assessed.
Other targets the same night
Omsk was one of several sites hit. Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) said it ran a series of strikes with other branches of the Defense Forces against Russian energy infrastructure and against military targets in occupied Crimea.
Drones struck the Yaroslavl oil refinery and the Yaroslavl oil pumping and dispatch station. The SBU reported explosions and smoke near the refinery. At the port of Vysotsk in Leningrad Oblast, the agency said, an attack knocked out two oil loading arms and damaged three tanks used to store petroleum products. In Kaluga Oblast, drones went after the First Plant oil refinery, and a fire followed explosions there.
In Crimea, the SBU said drones hit three aircraft hangars at the Hvardiiske airfield, a Pantsir-S2 air defense system near Simferopol and a mobile fire group in Kerch. A petroleum storage tank and a pumping station at the TES-Terminal-1 oil depot were also struck.
Fuel for Crimea
Commander Robert “Madyar” Brovdi of the Unmanned Systems Forces said his units hit two Russian shadow fleet tankers in the Sea of Azov. Together they carried 7,000 metric tons of fuel bound for Crimea, which Brovdi put at roughly 200 rail tank cars. He added that from July 1 to 5, the forces struck 37 energy nodes across occupied Crimea and other Russian-occupied areas of southern Ukraine.
The peninsula is already short of fuel after repeated attacks on energy infrastructure. Authorities there stopped fuel sales altogether on June 21.
SBU chief Yevhenii Khmara framed the strikes as a response to Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities. “We are doing everything to ensure that Russia pays every day for its crimes,” he said. “While the enemy shells peaceful Ukrainian cities, its military and fuel infrastructure will continue to suffer significant losses.”
Russia launched another large overnight attack on Kyiv on July 6, the second major assault on the capital in four days. At least 19 people were killed and dozens more injured.
