Drone attack on the Kstovsky refinery: Nizhny Novgorod region authorities report 'significant damage'

What happened in the Kstovsky district

On the night of Sunday, Russian authorities reported a large drone attack on an 'industrial enterprise' in the Nizhny Novgorod region. The regional governor, Gleb Nikitin, wrote on Telegram that a 'massive UAV attack' had caused 'significant damage' to a facility in the Kstovsky district, that more than 100 drones had been destroyed, that, according to preliminary data, there were no casualties, and that emergency services were working at the scene. He also warned that temporary power outages and reduced hot water and heating supply in certain sections of residential networks were possible during restoration work.

According to monitoring channels, the target was Lukoil's oil refinery

Ukrainian and Russian monitoring Telegram channels, according to OSINT analysis, claim that the strike targeted Lukoil's Kstovsky oil refinery (Lukoil-Nizhegorodnefteorgsintez), which is considered one of the largest such enterprises in Russia. Officially, the governor referred to the target only as an 'industrial enterprise.' According to the company itself, the plant produces, among other things, diesel and aviation fuel.

The third major refinery in a few days

The Russian-language version of Euronews notes that this is already the third major Russian oil refinery attacked by Ukrainian Armed Forces strike drones in the past two days: earlier, large fires broke out at the Novokuybyshevsk refinery in the Samara region and at a refinery in Bashkiria, and social media published footage of columns of black smoke. The new attacks came after Ukraine had for a time suspended strikes on Russian refineries amid pressure from Donald Trump, who claimed that it was these attacks that were responsible for the rise in global diesel prices; however, as the outlet writes, most experts attribute the price increase to the US war with Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Overall, Ukraine has been stepping up strikes on Russian energy infrastructure this year — refineries, terminals, and oil depots.

The exchange of strikes on energy infrastructure continues from both sides

The attack on the Kstovsky refinery occurred the day after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that about 280,000 Ukrainian households were left without electricity after Russian strikes overnight into Friday. According to him, about 200,000 households are without power in Dnipro and the surrounding region, and at least another 80,000 in the Kyiv region; Russian forces, he said, hit a thermal power plant in Kyiv and four electrical substations in the eastern region of Dnipro.