Two people were killed and 12 injured when Ukrainian drones hit the TANECO refinery in Nizhnekamsk, Tatarstan, Russian regional authorities said. Ukraine’s General Staff reported the strike on Sept. 13, and fires were seen at the plant.
Tatneft, one of Russia’s largest oil companies, runs TANECO. The refinery handles more than 16 million metric tons of oil a year, and Tatarstan authorities put its 2022 throughput at 16.2 million metric tons. It makes gasoline, diesel, aviation kerosene, marine fuel and other products.
The same night, the General Staff said, Ukrainian forces also hit the Slavyansky refinery in Sloviansk-on-Kuban, in Krasnodar Krai. A fire broke out there too. Falling debris from a drone damaged a gas pipeline in a residential area of the town, according to the Krasnodar Krai operational headquarters. The refinery belongs to Sloviansk ECO LLC, one of the largest independent refineries in southern Russia, with capacity of about 5.2 million metric tons of crude a year. The General Staff claimed it supplies the Russian Armed Forces.
A third target was a facility in Millerovo, in Rostov Oblast, which the General Staff said was used to store, prepare and launch Russian attack drones.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said its air defenses destroyed 389 Ukrainian drones overnight. The Kyiv Independent could not verify that figure. Russia’s aviation authority briefly restricted flights at the airports in Nizhnekamsk, Kazan and Bugulma, citing flight safety.
Not the first hit
TANECO had been attacked before. Ukraine’s General Staff confirmed a strike on the refinery on Aug. 10. Ten days later, around 6 a.m. on Aug. 20, Tatarstan authorities warned of a drone threat in several cities, Nizhnekamsk among them. Ukrainian defense company Fire Point said FP-1 drones carried out that attack, and it published footage from eyewitnesses showing the drones in flight. The company described the complex as having a design capacity of more than 16 million metric tons of crude a year.
Nizhnekamsk’s mayor confirmed the attack but said air defense forces “successfully repelled another massive attack on our district.”
Earlier, on the night of July 8, Ukrainian forces struck a petrochemical plant in Nizhnekamsk, as Exilenova Plus first reported. Zelensky confirmed that night’s strikes, which also hit the Saratov Oil Refinery. “Ukraine is quite rightly responding to Russia for its attacks on our country and for prolonging the war,” he said in a social media post. The attacks came on the same night Russia hit Kyiv with ballistic missiles for the third time in six days.
Kyiv has stepped up attacks on Russian logistics and energy infrastructure in recent months. Robert Brovdi, Ukraine’s top drone warfare commander, known as “Madyar,” said long-range drones hit eight Russian shadow fleet tankers in the Sea of Azov on July 7 and another nine the next day.
Sources
- Ukraine strikes 2 major Russian oil refineries in Krasnodar and Tatarstan, General Staff says
- Ukrainian drones hammer Russia's Saratov Oil Refinery, Tatarstan petrochemical plant, Zelensky confirms
- Ukraine hits major TANECO oil complex in Tatarstan with FP-1 drones
