Ukrainian drone strikes ignite fires in Russian oil facilities

On Sunday morning, a fire broke out at a fuel storage facility in the Kursk region, in the European part of Russia. The Russians claim this is the result of attacks by Ukrainian drones.

Three tanks at the fuel storage facility in the Kursk region caught fire due to the Ukrainian drone attack, according to the governor of the region, Alexei Smirnov, who reported this on Sunday morning, citing Reuters.

No one was killed or injured. The fire in one of the tanks was quickly extinguished, but the effort to combat the fire in the rest of the facility continues. Thirty-two fire units and 82 firefighters were brought to the scene, Smirnov said in a statement published on Telegram.

The previous day, on Saturday, the Ukrainian side admitted to conducting drone attacks on the Russian Olenya Air Base in the Murmansk region, located far beyond the Arctic Circle, as well as on an airbase in Engels, located in the Saratov region. Olenya Air Base is approximately 1,800 kilometres from the Ukrainian border.

Also on Saturday, based on information from Russian sources, Ukrainian media reported drone attacks on the Diagilevo Airport and an oil refinery in the Ryazan region, which lies just under 200 kilometres southeast of Moscow.

Ukrainian forces and special services regularly conduct complex operations in Russia using drones. The targets of these actions are military, industrial, and technological infrastructure, including those far from Ukraine's borders.

Reports from recent months note particularly increased activity of attacks on Russian oil refineries. According to Reuters' estimates, the production capacities of those facilities in Russia rendered out of operation in the first quarter of 2024 because of drone attacks reached approximately 5.1 million tonnes of oil (averaging 59,000 cubic metres per day), about 7 percent of the country's total oil processing capacity.