Ukrainian strike drones targeted one of Russia’s largest oil refineries, the Kirishinefteorgsintez, in the city of Kirishi, the Leningrad region, on the night of May 5.
The fire in the city’s industrial zone was confirmed by the regional governor, and the NASA FIRMS monitoring service has also detected fire hotspots at the refinery.
The head of the region, Aleksandr Drozdenko, claimed that 18 drones were reportedly shot down over the area. According to him, firefighters are already working to extinguish the fires.
Kirishi Oil Refinery
The Kirishinefteorgsintez (KINEF) is one of Russia’s largest oil refineries.
The plant specializes in processing crude oil and producing petroleum products, including gasoline, diesel fuel, fuel oil, aviation fuel, and other components.
The plant is part of the Surgutneftegas company. Its annual capacity is 20.1 million tons of crude oil. The distance from the refinery to the Ukrainian border is approximately 790 km. This is already the fifth known attack on this Russian oil refinery.
The previous drone strike on the facility took place on the night of March 26, 2026. The attack caused oil storage tanks to catch fire, and eyewitnesses reported seeing the smoke.
Another UAV strike on the oil refinery occurred on the night of October 4, 2025. It was carried out by the Ukrainian Special Operations Forces in coordination with the Russian Black Spark insurgent movement.
The attack resulted in damage to the critically important ELOU-AVT-6 unit. This unit is designed for desalting and primary fractionation of crude oil. Its feedstock is the raw oil delivered to the refinery from pumping stations. The number at the end indicates the unit’s processing capacity – 6 million tons per year.
As previously reported, as a result of a Ukrainian drone strike on April 23, two tanks with a capacity of 50,000 m³ each were destroyed at the Gorky pumping station in Nizhny Novgorod region.
The pumping station functions as both a main and an intermediate station, facilitating the transport of crude oil from Western Siberia through main pipelines (including the Surgut – Gorky – Polotsk route) to major oil refineries in Russia’s central regions and for export.
