It has become known that this morning, on March 16, Ukrainian kamikaze drones hit two russian oil refineries located in Samara Oblast, russia. The distance to the state border of Ukraine is 900 kilometers at least.
The hits were recorded at OJSC Novokuybyshev as well as OJSC Syzran refineries (which has a design capacity of 8,5 million tons per year). In the second case, it was reported that one of the hits was at the crude distillation unit (CDU) AVT-6, in particular the K-2 column.
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It is also known that fragments of the Tu-141 Strizh drone were also found in Bryansk Oblast in the russian federation. There is currently no information that this unmanned aerial vehicle was shot down by russian air defense today.
But, it is already possible to summarize some preliminary results of current campaign of strikes on russian refineries.
As of the evening of March 15, 10 russian refineries had been hit. Now this number has risen to 12. Taking into account the size of these facilities, it is clear that strike planners did not even aim to destroy these refineries to the ground, but to paralyze their production process for some time. All this was achieved by hitting CDUs, which are essentially large "columns" several tens of meters high and several meters in diameter.
All of this raises questions that are probably not be answered yet. For instance, what technological solutions make it possible to ensure such a good accuracy of Ukrainian drones hitting russian refineries, especially at such a long distance.
There is also question of technological solutions that could help Ukrainian drones overcome obstacles such as several tens of kilometers of electronic warfare systems on the border with russia, as previously reported by Western media.
And also what techniques are being used to mislead russian air defense to ensure that Ukrainian drones can break through it. After all, if russians can afford to keep Mi-28 and Mi-24 attack helicopters far behind the frontline to "hunt" Ukrainian UAVs, it means that they have no problem with the number of air defense capabilities. But russians obviously have problems with organization of their work.
Earlier Defense Express reported that Ukrainian drones had flied 300 kilometers into russia's interior as well as hit another oil refinery.
Read more: Defense in Concrete: How the Third Line of Defense is Created in Ukraine (Photo)
