Drone Attack Triggers Fire at Russia’s Volgograd Oil Refinery
(Bloomberg) — Debris from an attempted drone strike triggered a blaze at Lukoil PJSC’s large oil refinery in Volgograd early Sunday morning, which authorities said was extinguished with no casualties.
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“During the night of May 12, the air defense and electronic warfare forces fought off a drone on the territory of the Volgograd region,” Governor Andrey Bocharov wrote on Telegram.
Unverified images on social media showed flames shooting from the facility. The extent of damage was unclear, and Lukoil hasn’t commented.
Ukraine’s intelligence agency claimed a drone strike on the same refinery the previous night. Bocharov said drones were “intercepted and destroyed” in the area but didn’t specify which targets had been attacked.
The Volgograd refinery, hundreds of miles east of the Ukrainian border, is capable of processing 14.8 million tons of oil a year and is among Russia’s largest. It was previously struck by drones in February, when it temporarily cut back some of its operations.
Ukraine resumed attacks on Russian refineries in late April after a pause almost of a month. On Thursday, Gazprom PJSC’s Salavat Neftekhim petrochemical and oil-refining plant was attacked and on Friday a small facility was hit by drones in the Kaluga region.
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