Ukrainian drones flew all the way to Siberia to strike Russia’s largest oil refinery

• New variants of Ukraine’s long-range attack drones have hit an oil refinery in Siberia.

• The 1,700-mile strike is Ukraine’s longest-range drone strike on Russia since the start of the war.

• Online footage shows a fire at a key processing unit of the Omsk plant, Russia’s largest refinery.

Ukraine hit the largest oil refinery in Russia’s Omsk city on Monday, stating that its forces carried out the attack. The farthest drone strike ever in war.

The Omsk facility, which processes about 21 million tons of oil annually, is located in Western Siberia and about 2,700 miles from Ukrainian territory (about the distance between Los Angeles and Houston).

Omsk Governor Vitaly Khotsenko confirmed the attacks on Monday, saying “enemy UAVs” had attacked the refinery and that no casualties had yet been reported.

Hotsenko urged the public “not to approach the debris” but did not specify the extent of damage.

Social media images showed at least one major fire at the refinery; Several columns of the refinery’s main processing unit, ELOU-AVT-11, were filmed emitting smoke.

Ukrainian Special Operations Forces claimed responsibility for the attack on Monday, saying it was the first attack on Ukraine’s Omsk facility.

“This is the deepest long-range strike into enemy territory for the entire duration of the full-scale invasion,” SOF wrote on its Telegram channel.

The military branch wrote that ELOU-AVT-11, which it described as “the most important unit of the enterprise”, was damaged in the attacks.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy highlighted the attack in his speech during the night, calling it a “significant success” for his forces.

“Improved Firepoint drones put Siberia within sensitive range of Ukraine,” he said.

Denys Shtilierman, chief designer Ukrainian ammunition company Fire PointA new version of the company’s FP-1 drone was involved in the attack, X wrote on Monday.

FP-1 is one of Ukraine’s most prominent long-range unidirectional attack drones. The fixed-wing platform can typically carry up to 60 kg of payload, with an initial range of 1,000 miles, later extended to 1,600 miles.

But Shtilierman said Monday that the latest version of the jet-launched drone could 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 normal business hours.

long range attack drone It was one of the most significant developments of the war in terms of strategic attack. Much slower but much cheaper than conventional missiles, these missiles formed the basis of missiles. Ukraine’s strategy Undermining the oil and gas industries critical to the Russian economy.

The tempo of attacks has been increasing recently, with Kiev reporting more than 50 attacks on Russia’s oil infrastructure since March.

Last week, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said the attacks hit about 42% of Russia’s total oil refining capacity.

More than half of Russia’s 83 regions have introduced fuel rationing in recent weeks; official government figures say national gasoline production has fallen 17% to 850,000 barrels a day.

leader of Russia, Vladimir PutinHe acknowledged earlier this month that his country was experiencing fuel shortages, but dismissed them as temporary and “not critical.”

Putin said he plans to rapidly increase production of air defense systems to protect the skies above Moscow’s refineries.

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