On the morning of March 5, 2024, around 09:00 local time, a fire broke out at an oil depot in Dolgoye, a village in Russia’s Belgorod region. Russian media blamed an explosion. A source in Ukraine’s military intelligence directorate, the HUR, told Ukrinform what had caused it: the depot, run by JSC Belgorodnefteprodukt, “was attacked by a Ukrainian-made drone.”
It was not an isolated hit. Ukrinform counted “at least nine oil depots and refineries” struck inside Russia since the start of 2024, spread from Bryansk and Kursk to Volgograd, Yaroslavl, Leningrad and Krasnodar, plus St. Petersburg.
Reaching further
Two months later the pattern had widened. Overnight on May 12, a drone came down on the Lukoil refinery in Volgograd and set it alight. Governor Andrey Bocharov said air defences had “repelled” the attack, but one intercepted drone fell onto the plant. The fire was put out. It was the refinery’s second strike of 2024; the company had said in April that operations were back to normal after a February attack.
The same night, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported shooting down drones over Bryansk and Lipetsk and two missiles over Belgorod. Ukrainian military intelligence, speaking through the broadcaster Suspilne, claimed the Volgograd strike along with hits on an oil depot in Kaluga and a metallurgical plant in Lipetsk. Novaya Gazeta noted that a strike on an oil facility in Bashkortostan days earlier ranked among Ukraine’s longest-range attacks since the full-scale invasion began.
The stated aim, as the outlet described it, was to disrupt the oil revenue that pays for Russia’s military operations.
December 2025
By late 2025 the raids came in larger waves. On December 11, Ukraine launched nearly 300 drones and cruise missiles across nearly 2,000 kilometers, aiming at five major energy facilities and four military airfields, according to the Kyiv Post.
Three nights later, drones hit again. In the Volgograd region, an oil depot in Uryupinsk caught fire and residents of nearby homes were evacuated; Bocharov reported no casualties. The Novo-Yaroslavsky refinery in Yaroslavl, a plant with an annual processing capacity of 15 million tons, was struck for the second time in two days. In Krasnodar Krai, debris from an attack near the Afipsky refinery started a fire at a private home, damaged several others and brought down a power line, leaving the area without electricity.
Russia’s Ministry of Defense said it shot down 141 drones overnight: 35 over Bryansk, 32 over Crimea and 22 over Krasnodar Krai. Ukraine’s General Staff then confirmed it had hit the Afipsky refinery, reporting “explosions and a large-scale fire” at the target.
Sources
- Ukrainian drone attacks oil depot in Russia's Belgorod region
- Fire at Volgograd oil refinery as Ukrainian drone strikes on Russia's energy sector intensify
- Russia's Oil Facilities Burn After Ukraine Confirms Widespread Strikes on Military Infrastructure
