Drones hit Lukoil PJSC’s Volgograd refinery overnight, as well as a major oil-pumping complex in the Samara region, according to Ukraine’s General Staff.

Published on: Oct 2, 2026, 22:21:01 IST

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Ukraine said it attacked one of Russia’s biggest oil refineries and a key hub in the country’s crude-pipeline network, intensifying its campaign against crucial infrastructure to limit Moscow’s ability to finance the war.

Drones hit Lukoil PJSC’s Volgograd refinery overnight, as well as a major oil-pumping complex in the Samara region, according to Ukraine’s General Staff. Fires were recorded at both sites, it said on Telegram, adding that the extent of the damage was still being assessed.

The Volgograd refinery can process about 300,000 barrels of crude a day. The Samara pumping station is a crucial part of the system, feeding domestic refineries and key export routes toward the Black and Baltic seas and the Druzhba pipeline.

Kyiv’s attacks on Russian oil assets, particularly refineries, are a response to Moscow’s almost daily strikes on Ukraine’s critical infrastructure, Black Sea ports and ships, as well as other civilian targets. The strikes have damaged Russia’s downstream industry and prompted the government to restrict most exports of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel.

Lukoil and Russia’s oil-pipeline operator Transneft PJSC didn’t immediately respond to Bloomberg requests for comment.

“We’re responding fairly to the Russian escalation with our long-range sanctions,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Friday on Telegram, adding that areas attacked overnight include the Krasnodar, Samara, Volgograd and Nizhny Novgorod regions — home to several fuel-producing plants.

Russia repelled Ukrainian attacks on four oil refineries and is assessing damage at only one of them, Interfax reported, citing Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak. He said the threat to refineries remains elevated, though protection measures have reduced the scale of damage.

Satellite images taken by NASA’s Fire Information for Resource Management System on Friday show fresh heat anomalies both at the refinery site and the oil-pumping complex, likely indicating blazes.

The Samara oil pumping station is Europe’s biggest tank farm and a major hub in Russia’s crude network. It has a storage capacity of more than 1.6 million cubic meters, and handles supplies from western Siberia and Kazakhstan.

Kazakhstan’s Energy Ministry didn’t immediately respond to a request for a comment whether its crude flows via the Samara oil pumping station were affected.

The Volgograd refinery, which halted operations after a previous attack at the end of July, had gradually been restoring process rates in September.

(Updates with comments from Ukraine’s president and Russia’s deputy prime minister)

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