Ukrainian long-range drones struck an oil refinery nearly 1,100 miles into Russia, marking one of Kyiv’s deepest strikes of the war, a security official told Business Insider on Thursday.
The drones struck the Ukhta refinery in Russia’s Komi Republic, a source in the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said. They were only authorized to speak on the condition of anonymity to discuss military developments.
The source said the targeted refinery is located 1,750 kilometers (1,087 miles) from the Ukrainian border, in what was Kyiv’s latest strike on Russian energy infrastructure.
The attack on Thursday triggered a fire at the refinery. Plumes of smoke are visible in footage of the facility shared by the SBU source. One video shows what appears to be a large Ukrainian drone streaming across the sky. Business Insider could not independently verify the imagery.
The refinery is part of Russia’s state-owned PJSC Lukoil Oil Company, and it processes about 4 million tons of oil annually. The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, which confirmed the attack, said the facility supplies Moscow’s military.
The General Staff wrote on the Telegram messaging platform that “other components” of Ukraine’s defense forces were involved in the attack.
“The SBU continues to carry out targeted strikes on the enterprises of the Russian oil refining complex, which ensure the functioning of the military machine of the aggressor country,” the security service source said in a translated statement.
Hitting such targets “reduces the enemy’s ability to provide their troops with fuel, complicates logistics, and reduces financial revenues that go to the war against Ukraine,” they said.
Russia’s defense ministry said that it shot down 211 fixed-wing Ukrainian drones over the past 24 hours, but it did not specify where. Neither the ministry nor the country’s embassy in the US immediately responded to a request for comment.
Since August, Ukraine has intensified its long-range drone attacks on Russian energy facilities, hitting oil and gas infrastructure on land, such as refineries and ports, as well as tankers and platforms in the Black, Caspian, and Mediterranean seas.
Ukrainian officials have described the campaign targeting Russia’s energy sector as “long-range” sanctions on Moscow, which uses the revenue from this industry to fuel its full-scale invasion.
Yehor Cherniev, deputy chairman of the Ukrainian parliamentary committee on national security, defense, and intelligence, told Business Insider earlier this week that striking the Russian energy sector has been “one of the best decisions” because “it is painful for them.”
“I think that’s why they have a problem in their economy and with the financing of the war, actually, of their armed forces,” he said. “We have to continue to do this.”
The Ukrainian deep strikes have affected Russia’s oil sector. Refining has declined over the past year; Moscow processed 5.3 million barrels a day last month, compared with the 5.6 million barrels it usually processes in January, according to a Bloomberg report.
Meanwhile, Russia has stepped up its missile and drone barrages on Ukrainian energy infrastructure this winter, causing blackouts in cities around the country and leaving civilians without heat, electricity, and water.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Thursday that Russia used 219 drones and 25 missiles to attack the country during the previous night, killing multiple people in an attack primarily aimed at energy infrastructure in Kyiv and other cities.
United Nations officials have called this winter Ukraine’s coldest in over a decade.
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