KIRISHI, Russia’s — The Kirishi refinery, Russia’s second-largest, caught fire overnight after a Ukrainian drone attack, Leningrad Gov. Alexander Drozdenko said on Monday.
Drozdenko said air defenses had intercepted 113 drones. However, he acknowledged that several drones struck industrial facilities in the city of Kirishi. Shrapnel also struck an apartment in Kirishi and the roof of a multi-story residential building in Vsevolozhsk, according to the governor. No injuries were reported in Kirishi, although residents of the damaged apartment were evacuated. The consequences of the incident in Vsevolozhsk were still being assessed.
“There are confirmed cases of UAV impacts in the industrial zone of the city of Kirishi,” Drozdenko wrote on Telegram.
A year’s throughput at the plant is about 20 million metric tons of oil. That works out to roughly 400,000 barrels a day. From Kirishi to the Ukrainian border is about 800 kilometers, or 500 miles. The refinery there has been hit several times before.
Fuel Shortages Return in Russian Regions
At least half a dozen Russian regions are seeing fuel shortages again, officials and Russian media said. Reuters tied the return to Ukrainian strikes that hit at least eight major oil refineries over the past two weeks. Kyiv has hit refineries harder since Oct. 30. That is when an energy ceasefire announced by President Donald Trump failed to take hold.
Parfenchikov, Karelia’s governor, posted on Telegram that Rosneft stations along the region’s highways were allowing no more than 30 liters of gasoline and 50 liters of diesel per sale. Sales of fuel in canisters were suspended.
“Our main priority at present is to prevent panic buying, ensure the even distribution of fuel, and maintain the stable operation of all petrol stations in order to avoid disruptions,”
In Buryatia, far off in eastern Siberia, Rosneft stations in Ulan-Ude, the capital, are under the same caps, the region’s authorities said. Five more regions reported limits of their own: Zabaykalsky, Nizhny Novgorod, Arkhangelsk, Penza and Krasnoyarsk, according to Reuters.
Russian Strikes Cut Power Across Ukraine
Russian attacks on energy facilities over the previous 24 hours left consumers without electricity across 12 Ukrainian regions, Ukraine’s Deputy Energy Minister Artem Nekrasov said on Monday.
“Due to significant damage, the situation remains most difficult in the Dnipropetrovsk and Kyiv regions,” Nekrasov said.
Ukraine’s Energy Ministry accused Russia of deliberately targeting the country’s energy and oil and gas sectors 128 times over the past week.
Mid-October brought a resumption. Ukraine had paused its refinery strikes for a short time, at Washington’s urging, and then started them again.
U.S.-mediated talks between Russia and Ukraine open in Abu Dhabi on Nov. 10 and 11, the day after the exchange. How badly the Kirishi plant was damaged, and whether processing there has stopped, was not clear on Monday.
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