Ukraine says it has hit one of Russia’s largest oil refineries in a drone strike

(CNN) — Ukraine claimed Saturday to have struck one of Russia’s largest oil refineries in a drone attack, starting a fire at the facility more than 700 miles into Russian territory.

The attack on the Taneco refinery in the city of Nizhnekamsk, Tatarstan – one of the largest and most modern refineries in Russia – was the second time the facility had been struck by Ukrainian forces within the space of a year, according to Lieutenant Andrii Kovalenko, the head of Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation.

Social media images geolocated by CNN appear to show massive flames and smoke in the dark skies as workers trudge through the snow evacuating from the fiery building.

Despite the footage, the press service of the Republic of Tatarstan denied there had been a fire at the plant, insisting instead that it had been carrying out a mock evacuation as a safety exercise and that the images of the glowing facility in fact showed “the work of the plant’s torches.”

The Taneco refinery has a refining capacity of over 16 million tons of oil per year and “plays a key role in supplying fuel to the Russian army,” according to the Ukrainian official Kovalenko.

“The destruction of refineries and oil depots directly affects Russia’s ability to wage an intense war,” he added.

Kovalenko said the refinery had also been hit in the spring of 2024, in an attack that damaged its primary processing unit.

Last April, Ukrainian drone attacks in Tatarstan targeted both a Shahed drone assembly factory and a primary oil refining unit at the refinery, one of the five largest such facilities in Russia, sources told CNN at the time.

The attack last April was at the time the farthest into Russian territory Ukraine had struck since the beginning of the war.

The-CNN-Wire
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