A major petroleum refinery in Russia has sustained heavy damage following a massive drone assault overnight and into Sunday morning, local officials reported. The facility, operated by Lukoil in the Kstovo district roughly 400 kilometers east of Moscow, is counted among the largest oil processing sites in the country.
Gleb Nikitkin, governor of the Nizhny Novgorod region, confirmed via Telegram that an industrial enterprise in Kstovo suffered extensive damage during the barrage. Nikitkin stated that over a hundred incoming aerial vehicles were intercepted and destroyed, adding that preliminary reports indicated no casualties, though he did not comment on the refinery’s operational status.
Ukrainian media outlets, including the news agency RBC, reported that the facility was targeted by Ukrainian forces. The Kstovo plant possesses an annual processing capacity of approximately 17 million tons of crude oil, translating to roughly 340,000 barrels per day. The strike follows Russian government statements on Friday indicating that Kyiv had resumed its campaign against Russian energy infrastructure after a brief pause. Russian Deputy Energy Minister Alexander Novak reported that three refineries had been struck during those earlier attacks.
The cross-border drone operations form part of an ongoing strategy by Kyiv to target industrial sites within Russia in retaliation for sustained aerial bombardments of Ukrainian energy infrastructure since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022.
Meanwhile, the air force of Ukraine reported intercepting a separate wave of Russian aerial attacks, stating that air defense units neutralized 122 aerial targets and two missiles on Saturday out of a total onslaught involving 168 drones and missiles. Additional bombardments left hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian households without power, including some 200,000 homes in the Dnipropetrovsk region and 80,000 in the Kyiv region, where a thermal power station was struck.
On the diplomatic and humanitarian fronts, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy noted that nearly 700 residents from the frontline southern city of Olechky were evacuated to northern Ukraine following a humanitarian operation routed through Russia and Belarus. Zelenskyy expressed gratitude to the U.S. delegation and First Lady Melania Trump for their mediation efforts.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also hosted Zelenskyy in Istanbul on Saturday, where the two leaders agreed to establish a Black Sea grain corridor to bolster food security. In parallel, U.S. diplomatic officials discussed a potential meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Poutine at an upcoming economic summit in China, while Kyiv awaits the delivery of an approved U.S. package containing 500 Patriot interceptor missiles.
