Systematic attacks on russian oil refineries continued, with a new fire breaking out after explosions at the Kuybyshevsky oil refinery in the Samara region of russia overnight on March 23rd.
The facility is located about 900 km from any possible drone launch point provided such launch took place from the territory of Ukraine, though the real distance covered by the UAVs is bigger than that because the approach routes are never a straight line. The path is decided upon considering the known enemy air defense areas to go around, in particular.
Read more: The UK Defense Intelligence: Ukraine Disrupts 10% of russia’s Oil Refining Capacity
At night, a Russian oil refinery in the city of Novokuibyshevsk, Samara region, was attacked. pic.twitter.com/RIsicHG1pr — Ukrainian Front (@front_ukrainian) March 23, 2024
The open-source imagery above shows the scale of destruction caused by the strike. According to the local governor, Dmitry Azarov, the fire has engulfed specifically the crude primary processing unit, also known as the distillation unit. This part of the plant is the cornerstone for the rest of oil treatment processes and production of petroleum, kerosene, diesel and other fuels. However, despite admitting the fact of a fire breaking out, Azarov claimed that "no harm to the technological equipment was caused."
The declared capacity of the Kuybyshevsky refinery is 7 million tons of oil per year. From 2012 to 2015, the plant underwent significant modernization at a cost of 10.4 billion rubles, at the exchange rate of 2012 it was about 335 million U.S. dollars.
The weapon of the strike remains unknown but Ukraine's known arsenal capable of such a long-range strike is limited. In particular, the Liutyi UAV developed by the state-owned conglomerate Ukrainian Defense Industry JSC is believed to be capable of strikes at ranges exceeding 1,000 km.
Worth noting, the strike on russian oil processing industry comes soon after The Financial Times published an article stating that unspecified officials in the United States had asked the Ukrainian military to stop attacks on russian oil refineries fearing potential rise in oil prices. That is despite the fact that the U.S. itself initiated sanctions against the russian oil industry, setting a price cap for it, trying to fight the shadow tanker fleet of the russian federation and shell companies used for unauthorized oil transportation.
On the other hand, the sole fact of such information appearing in Western media reference to "own sources" could be the result of an attempt by the russian federation to at least somehow deal with these annoyingly successful strikes.
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