Ukrainian drones cause fire at major Russian gas processing plant, governor says
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Ukrainian drones attacked the Orenburg gas processing plant, the world’s largest, damaging part of it, but no employees were injured in the attack, the regional governor said on Sunday.
Governor Yevgeny Solntsev said on his official Telegram channel that the drone attack caused a fire in a workshop at the factory, which emergency services tried to extinguish.
The facility, which is part of Gazprom’s Orenburg gas chemical complex, which includes 45 billion cubic meters of annual gas production and processing facilities in the Orenburg region, was reported to have been hit for the first time.
The plant processes gas condensate from the Orenburg oil and gas condensate field as well as Kazakhstan’s Karachaganak field.
Separately, the governor of Russia’s Samara region, Vyacheslav Fedorishchev, said on social media that air defenses were operating overnight against Ukrainian drones and that local airport and mobile internet services were temporarily suspended.
Ukraine had previously tried to attack an oil refinery in the Samara region.
In the statement made by the Russian Ministry of Defense, it was stated that the air defense forces shot down 45 Ukrainian UAVs overnight, 12 over the Samara region, 11 over the Saratov region and 1 over the Orenburg region.
There was no immediate comment from Ukraine, which has stepped up attacks on Russian refineries and other energy facilities since August in an attempt to disrupt oil supplies and deprive Moscow of funds.
(Reporting by ReutersEditing: Andrew Osborn)
