Ukrainian Drones Strike Major Russian Refineries in Deep-Strike Campaign

Ukraine has launched a series of long-range drone strikes targeting two significant Russian oil refineries, marking a escalation in Kyiv’s strategy to cripple Moscow’s war economy. According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the overnight operations hit a crucial refining facility in the Yaroslavl region for the second consecutive night, striking infrastructure situated hundreds of kilometres behind the front lines.

Video footage shared on social media platforms by local residents showed a massive fire engulfing the Slavneft-YANOS oil refinery in Yaroslavl, an industrial hub located more than 700 kilometres from the Ukrainian border. Astra, an independent Russian news channel operating on Telegram, verified the geolocated footage to confirm the precise site of the blaze. In the same wave of attacks, Ukrainian uncrewed aerial vehicles reached as far as the Republic of Bashkortostan, hitting a smaller processing facility nearly 1,300 kilometres from the active conflict zone.

Writing on Facebook, President Zelensky described the targeted operations as a direct economic countermeasure. He noted that Ukraine’s long-range “sanctions” were actively functioning to choke off the revenues Russia extracts from petroleum sales—capital that directly fuels its military operations and armed campaign against the Ukrainian populace.

Regional authorities in Russia acknowledged the incoming aerial threats as the attacks unfolded. Mikhail Yevrayev, the governor of the Yaroslavl region, confirmed that Ukrainian drones were operating in the area, prompting emergency services to impose temporary traffic restrictions on key routes heading towards Moscow. The closures included critical junctions connecting the south-western ring road and Moskovsky Prospekt, both situated in close proximity to the burning refinery complex. However, official Russian sources remained tight-lipped regarding the exact extent of the structural damage sustained by the industrial plant. Local residents reported that secondary fires had spread to nearby residential structures following the strikes, though these civilian damages could not be independently verified.

The targeted Slavneft-YANOS facility in Yaroslavl is a cornerstone of Russia’s domestic energy infrastructure. Ranking as the largest processing site in central Russia and one of the top five nationwide, the plant has an annual refining capacity of approximately 15 million metric tonnes of crude oil. The facility manufactures a wide spectrum of petroleum products essential for both civilian transportation and military logistics, including petrol, diesel fuel, aviation jet fuel, liquefied petroleum gas, and heavy fuel oil.

This latest barrage is part of an intensifying pattern. Ukrainian forces had previously struck the same Yaroslavl plant just 24 hours earlier, building on a sustained offensive that saw the facility targeted at least four times in May 2026 alone.

Kyiv’s broader campaign against Russian energy infrastructure aims to systematically reduce refining capacities across the country. Ukrainian defence officials report that these repeated deep-strike operations have already forced several key Russian facilities to curtail output or halt operations entirely, straining Moscow’s internal fuel supply chains and severely disrupting military supply lines supporting the front.