Russia's largest oil refinery - the one in the city of Omsk - has shut down after a Ukrainian drone attack, Reuters reported, citing information from industry sources today, BTA reports.
Yesterday's strike on the plant in the city, which is located deep in Russian territory - in Siberia, is one of the longest-range Ukrainian strikes since the start of the war in 2022, the world agency notes.
The shutdown of the plant, which is Russia's largest oil producer, is likely to exacerbate fuel shortages across the country. "The facilities of the Omsk oil refinery suffered damage as a result of the attack (on Monday - editor's note). No employees of the plant were injured", Anatoly Serishev, President Vladimir Putin's deputy in the Siberian Federal District, said in a statement today.
"The damage is currently being assessed and competent services have organized restoration work", Serishev said, without specifying how the refinery's operations were affected.
According to Reuters sources, a crude oil distillation unit - the Tenth Primary Distillation Unit (BPD 10/CDU-10), which accounts for 38% (24,580 cubic meters per day) of the plant's production capacity, caught fire in the attack.
The Omsk refinery stopped selling gasoline and diesel on the St. Petersburg International Commodity Exchange today, the exchange said. According to Reuters, another primary distillation unit, BPD-11, has also been shut down. It accounts for 37% of the plant's capacity and is capable of processing 24,000 cubic meters per day.
The Omsk plant has two sealed primary distillation units, BPD-7 and BPD-8, with a production capacity of 10,000 cubic meters per day each. In theory, they could simply be launched, Reuters notes.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian military announced that in the past two days it had attacked 12 tankers from the Russian "shadow fleet" that were delivering fuel to Crimea with drones, Reuters reported, noting that Kiev is stepping up its actions on the isolated peninsula annexed by Moscow in 2014.
In a statement today, the Ukrainian drone operations unit announced that it had hit 8 tankers (each of which is subject to international sanctions and has a carrying capacity of about 7,000 tons) in the Sea of Azov. Later today, two more similar vessels were hit.
This brings the number of ships attacked in the past two days to 12 - yesterday, again in the Sea of Azov, two tankers were hit.
On the other hand, Moscow reported that two people died in Russian-controlled territories in Ukrainian regions after attacks by Ukrainian troops, TASS reported.
A 35-year-old man was killed and his 62-year-old father was injured in a Ukrainian drone strike on a car in the Novoaydarsky district of the Luhansk People's Republic, the Moscow-appointed head of the region, Leonid Pasechnik, announced. A 43-year-old driver was injured in a car attack in the Starobelsky district.
One person was killed and four others were injured in a Ukrainian drone strike on a commercial base in Melitopol, the Moscow-appointed governor of the Russian territory of Zaporizhia Oblast, Yevgeny Balitsky, told TASS. The victim was a man born in 1987, he said.
In addition, five civilians were injured in a Ukrainian drone attack in Russia's Belgorod region, the local operations headquarters reported on its channel in the Max app, TASS reported.