A Ukrainian drone strike on a major oil-refining hub in central Russia killed 13 people and wounded a further 75 early on Monday as Kyiv’s campaign targeting Russian infrastructure continued.
Local officials said the death toll in Nizhnekamsk, a city about 1,200km east of Ukraine’s border, included one child. It is one of the highest in a single Ukrainian attack since Russian president Vladimir Putin ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Ukraine’s General Staff said it had struck the Taneco refinery in Nizhnekamsk as “part of efforts to reduce the military potential of the Russian aggressor”, and another refinery in southern Russia.
Videos on social media of the aftermath of the attacks showed a fire breaking out at the industrial site that Taneco shares with another refinery and a large petrochemical plant.
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“The Armed Forces of Ukraine will continue systematically implementing measures aimed at bringing the Russian Federation’s armed aggression to an end,” the General Staff said, adding that Kyiv’s forces had also carried out strikes on a Russian equipment depot in the occupied Donetsk region city of Novoselydivka and a field artillery storage facility in nearby Boiove.
Ukraine’s attacks on Russian energy infrastructure this summer have knocked out more than 30 per cent of the country’s refinery capacity, prompting the worst fuel crisis since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Local authorities in Tatarstan, a region on the Volga River, declared a period of mourning for the victims of the attack, the third on the site this summer.
Russian officials said the drones had hit industrial sites and residential areas in Nizhnekamsk.
The defence ministry said Ukraine fired a total of 456 drones at Russia overnight.
Ukraine’s homegrown drone strike capabilities, which have hit targets as far as western Siberia, have helped its forces turn the tide on the battlefield and bring the war’s consequences home to Russia.
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday evening that the campaign was retaliation for Russia’s bombardments of Ukrainian cities.
Moscow has struck Ukrainian cities throughout the war with missiles and drones, killing more than 16,000 civilians. Ukraine has increasingly struggled to repel the attacks in recent months as its stocks of anti-air defence weapons, particularly US-made Patriot interceptors, run low.
“We do deliver entirely justified responses, and every Russian strike will be met with our response. Russia’s war will be felt more and more at their own home — in Russia,” Zelenskiy said.
Zelenskiy also said Ukraine hit Russian anti-aircraft missile systems and radar stations over the weekend, as well as energy infrastructure in the Azov and Black Sea regions. “The only reason this is still continuing is Russia’s unwillingness to end this war,” Zelenskiy said on social media site X.
Ukraine’s recent strikes have also targeted warehouses owned by Wildberries, Russia’s largest online retailer, killing at least nine people and wiping out billions of dollars of inventory belonging to the small businesses that sell on the site.
Russia’s central bank said on Monday that it recommended lenders restructure the debts of sellers on Wildberries, regardless of the terms of their loans, and waive any fines for late payment. - Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2026
