Ukraine has claimed responsibility for one of its longest-range drone attacks of the war after striking Russia’s largest oil refinery in Omsk, deep inside Siberia, in a major escalation of its campaign against Moscow’s energy infrastructure.
Ukraine’s General Staff said the overnight strike sparked a fire at the Omsk Oil Refinery, located about 2,700 kilometres from Ukrainian-held territory near Russia’s border with Kazakhstan. The attack would rank among the deepest Ukrainian strikes carried out since the conflict began.
Russian authorities confirmed the attack, with Omsk Governor Vitaly Khotsenko saying Ukrainian drones targeted the refinery but that Russian air defence systems intercepted most of them. He added that there were no reported casualties and emergency crews were deployed to the scene, although the full extent of the damage has yet to be determined.
In his nightly address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy hailed the operation as a significant achievement for the country’s armed forces, declaring that even Siberia was now within the reach of Ukraine’s precision strike capabilities.
Ukrainian defence technology company Fire Point said its upgraded FP-1 drones were used in the operation, describing it as a record-breaking mission for strike drones. The company noted that the Omsk refinery had previously remained beyond the range of Ukrainian drone attacks and was one of only two major Russian refineries that had not been targeted.
According to industry sources, the Gazprom Neft-owned refinery processed around 23 million metric tonnes of crude oil, or approximately 460,000 barrels per day, last year, making it Russia’s largest oil refinery. Ukraine has increasingly targeted Russian energy facilities in an effort to disrupt fuel supplies and place additional pressure on Moscow’s war effort.
The Omsk strike was part of a broader overnight wave of attacks. Ukraine also targeted the Ust-Luga and Vysotsk oil export ports on the Baltic Sea, along with facilities in Russia’s Kaluga and Yaroslavl regions, according to local officials.
Meanwhile, in Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, Russian-installed authorities said one woman was killed during a strike on the port city of Kerch, while a separate attack caused a power blackout in Sevastopol, the peninsula’s largest city. The latest wave of strikes underscores the expanding reach of Ukraine’s drone campaign as the conflict enters another intense phase.
