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Russian authorities said a major drone attack had targeted an “industrial enterprise” in the Nizhny Novgorod Oblast overnight, amid reports that a key oil refinery had been struck in the region.
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In a post on Telegram, regional governor Gleb Nikitin said a “massive UAV attack” had resulted in “significant damage” to an industrial facility in the Kstovsky district.
“More than 100 drones have been destroyed,” he wrote, adding that early information suggested there had been no casualties and that emergency crews were working at the scene.
“Whilst restoration work is underway, there may be temporary power cuts, as well as reduced hot water and heating supplies in certain sections of the utility networks serving residential buildings,” Nikitin said.
Telegram war monitoring channels said an attack had targeted the Kstovo oil refinery – also known as the Lukoil-Nizhegorodnefteorgsintez refinery, thought to be one of Russia’s largest such facilities.
According to Lukoil, the site is involved in the production of diesel and aviation fuel, among other things.
Earlier this week, a major fire reportedly broke out at another oil refinery in Russia’s Samara region following a drone attack, with dramatic images and video footage posted on social media showing multiple towering columns of black smoke filling the skyline.
That incident followed reports that Ukraine had paused strikes on Russian refineries amid pressure from Washington, which has blamed the attacks on rising global diesel prices as it has sought to shift blame from its war in Iran.
Ukraine had been ramping up attacks on Russian energy infrastructure this year, particularly targeting facilities such as oil refineries, terminals and depots, in a bid to hit a critical Russian economic driver and grind down the Kremlin’s war machine.
The latest reported attack comes after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said around 280,000 Ukrainian households had been left without power after Russian strikes on Ukraine on Friday night.
“Russian strikes have created a difficult situation with electricity supplies across our regions,” Zelenskyy wrote in a post on X on Saturday, saying that around 200,000 households in Dnipro and the wider region were without electricity while a further 80,000 or more in the Kyiv region were also without power.
The Ukrainian leader said Russian forces had hit a “combined heat and power plant” in Kyiv as well as four electrical substations in the eastern Dnipro region, among other targets.
