Ukraine struck Russia's largest oil refinery, located in the city of Omsk, on Monday, marking what its forces say was its furthest-ever drone attack in the war.
The Omsk facility, which processes about 21 million tons of oil a year, is in Western Siberia and about 1,700 miles from Ukrainian territory — roughly the distance between Los Angeles and Houston.
Omsk's governor, Vitaly Khotsenko, confirmed the attacks on Monday, saying that "enemy UAVs" had attacked the refinery, and no casualties had been reported yet.
Khotsenko urged the public not to "approach the debris" but did not specify the extent of the damage.
Social media footage indicated that at least one major fire was started at the refinery; several columns of the refinery's main processing unit, the ELOU-AVT-11, were filmed spouting smoke.
Ukraine's Special Operations Forces claimed responsibility for the attack on Monday, saying the attack was Ukraine's first-ever hit on the Omsk facility.
"This is the deepest long-range strike on enemy territory during the entire time of the full-scale invasion," the SOF wrote on its Telegram channel.
The military branch wrote that the ELOU-AVT-11, which it called "the most important unit of the enterprise," was damaged by the attacks.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy highlighted the attack in his nightly address, calling it an "important achievement" for his forces.
"Upgraded Firepoint drones have put Siberia within reach of Ukrainian precision," he said.
Denys Shtilierman, the chief designer of Ukrainian munitions firm Fire Point, wrote on X on Monday that a new variant of his company's FP-1 drone was involved in the strike.
The FP-1 is one of Ukraine's most prominent long-range one-way attack drones. The fixed-wing platform typically carries a payload of up to 60 kg, with an initial range of 1,000 miles, later extended to 1,600 miles.
Shtilierman, however, said on Monday that the jet-launched drone's latest version can fly 2,110 miles, easily eclipsing the distance between Ukraine and Omsk.
Fire Point did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent outside regular business hours.
The long-range attack drone has been one of the war's most prominent developments in strategic strike. Much slower but far cheaper than traditional missiles, they've formed the pillar of Ukraine's strategy to undermine the oil and gas industries critical to Russia's economy.
The strikes have recently been picking up in tempo, with Kyiv reporting over 50 attacks against Russian oil infrastructure since March.
Last week, Ukraine's General Staff of the Armed Forces said the attacks had hit about 42% of Russia's total oil refining capacity.
Roughly over half of Russia's 83 regions have introduced fuel rationing in recent weeks, as official government figures say national gasoline production dropped 17% to 850,000 barrels a day.
Russia's leader, Vladimir Putin, acknowledged earlier this month that his country was enduring fuel shortages, but dismissed them as temporary and "not critical."
Putin said Moscow plans to rapidly increase production of air defense systems to protect the skies above its refineries.
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Matthew is a senior reporter at Business Insider's Singapore bureau, primarily covering defense and how the war in Ukraine is rapidly changing battle technology and tactics.He joined the team in June 2021, previously focusing on internet crime and labor, examining how these issues impact modern society in Asia, with a particular emphasis on China.In 2024, he won the Singapore Press Club's Young Journalist of the Year Award. His work from 2023 also won a silver award from the North American Travel Journalists Association and accolades from Longreads.Matthew's previous work has been featured in the South China Morning Post, as well as Singaporean news companies TODAY and The Business Times.As a student, Matthew's coverage of migrant workers' nutrition in Singapore during the COVID pandemic won the SOAP Story of the Month award and the Student Category prize in the International Labor Organization's 2021 Global Media Competition on Labour Migration.Selected features:
- Death on the Savage Mountain: What really happened on K2, and why 100 climbers stepped over a dying man on their way to the summit
- The nuclear weapons era is making a comeback, and experts say we're all not paying attention
- How nets from a Danish fishing village found their way into Ukraine's modern war
- Inside Ukraine's race to crank out unjammable, fiber-optic drones that can break through Russia's electronic warfare
- Finding Dora
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