Oil refineries in Russia attacked

Drones attacked two oil refineries near the oil-export port of Novorosslisk this morning, setting fire to one. The other suffered no significant damage, but has come under attack before this incident.

The oil refinery attacks

At 3:00 a.m. Moscow Time (1:00 a.m. UTC), a drone struck the Afipsky oil refinery in the Krasnodar region. The refinery caught fire, but fire crews extinguished the blaze some hours later. Governor Veniamin Kondratyev of the Krasnodar region confirmed the attacks, according to Reuters, Newsweek, and The Moscow Times. An hour later, officials reported that a second drone crashed and broke apart on impact near the Ilsky refinery. That drone caused no damage, and a bomb disposal team destroyed it. Russian authorities report no casualties from either incident.

A Twitter influencer tweeted this footage from the Afipsky refinery fire at 2:11 a.m. Eastern Time. The provenance of his footage is unclear.

The Ilsky oil refinery has come under attack three times before. On May 4 and May 5, drones struck the Ilsky facility and set it ablaze. Reuters reported on that attack, citing a source as saying the drone hit “an aerial cooler at the CDU-5 column.”

A small swarm of drones tried to approach that refinery on May 28. Local officials reported that Russian air defenses intercepted them all.

These attacks come one day after an eight-drone swarm flew toward Moscow. Air defenses intercepted them, but debris from them fell into and damaged three apartment buildings. Only two people were wounded, neither seriously, but the buildings lie in one of Moscow’s wealthier districts. Vladimir Putin offered somewhat guarded praise for the job the air defenses did, according to Newsweek.

Work to be done?

“There is work to be done,” Putin said, which could mean the interceptions did not entirely satisfy him. He and presumably some of the oligarchs have residences in that district. Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner Group that figured in the Fall of Bakhmut, sharply criticized the defense ministry. “What should ordinary people do when drones crash into their windows?” he said, among other things.

This attack also comes after two drones caused minimal damage to the Kremlin itself in what Russian officials said was an attempt on Putin’s life. At least one doubter suggested instead that was a false-flag pseudo-operation.

About the image

This is an image of an unspecified oil refinery at sunset, probably not the Afipsky or Ilsky refinery.