Drones struck Russia’s Ryazan oil refinery overnight on 5 November, and the plant caught fire, Ukrainian Telegram channel Exilenova+ reported. The Rosneft-owned plant is one of Russia’s largest refineries.

Russia’s war runs on fuel and oil money, and Ukraine’s drones go for refinery parts that sanctions make hard to repair. The Ryazan refinery supplies fuel to Moscow and central Russia, and the last raid already cost it capacity. After the 15 October strike, one of its primary crude units shut down, two industry sources told Reuters. No one has yet reported which parts of the plant this fire hit. Ryazan is the fifth Russian refinery struck since 30 October, when strikes resumed after about two weeks without a reported refinery fire.

Fire at the refinery

Exilenova+ posted video of strike drones breaking through to the refinery’s industrial zone. About half an hour later, the channel wrote that the refinery had been attacked and was burning. Russian Telegram channel Astra said its OSINT analyst confirmed that the refinery itself was on fire.

Ryazan Oblast Governor Pavel Malkov claimed falling drone debris caused damage. Separately, he claimed fires broke out at industrial sites in Ryazan and damaged power lines cut electricity in part of the city. He also said an outbuilding caught fire in Rybnovsky district, private houses were damaged in Ryazan district, and a city school’s windows were blown out. One person was injured, he claimed. In a later update, Malkov claimed more than 200 drones attacked the region, power was restored, and the fires were out or contained.

He did not name the refinery. Three weeks earlier, after the 15 October raid, Malkov named the plant when he reported a fire there.

Astra also reported that a large Wildberries online-retail warehouse in Ryazan was presumably burning. Its analyst based that on a reader’s photo and had not verified it.

The refinery can process more than 17 million tons of crude a year, Exilenova+ noted. It makes gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, fuel oil, and bitumen. In its post on the fire, Astra also reported that the plant supplies Russia’s army, pointing to a 2014 Defense Ministry fuel batch and the TS-1 jet fuel it produces.

Four other refineries since 30 October

Drones hit Novokuibyshevsk in Samara Oblast on 30 October, the Bashneft-Novoil refinery in Ufa, Bashkortostan, on 31 October, and Lukoil’s Kstovo plant in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast on 1 November. Together, those three plants processed about 24 million tons of crude a year. That equals roughly 10% of Russia’s refining in 2024 and over 10% of its diesel. Overnight on 3 November, drones also struck the Slavneft-YANOS refinery in Yaroslavl. Yaroslavl Oblast Governor Mikhail Yevrayev said the attack damaged its infrastructure and wounded two workers. Crews were putting out a fire there, he added.

In Ufa, Astra’s analyst identified the burning plant as Bashneft-Novoil. Exilenova+ wrote that probably two Ufa refineries were attacked. Counting both, it calls Ryazan the sixth refinery hit in a week.

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Drones hit Russia’s Samara oil hub that blends Urals export crude—first strike there since 11 October

On 15 October, US President Donald Trump called Ukraine’s renewed refinery strikes “a disgrace.” In late October, The Wall Street Journal reported that Ukraine had paused them under US pressure until after the 3 November US midterms. The Novokuibyshevsk strike came hours later, and drones have hit four more refineries since.

Ukraine's Defense Forces hit the Novokuibyshevsk oil refinery in Russia's Samara Oblast with FP-1 drones early on 30 October, Ukrainian drone maker Fire Point said, adding that one of the units hit hydrotreats diesel fuel. The strike came hours after WSJ reported that Ukraine had paused strikes on Russian refineries under pressure from US President Donald Trump until after the US midterm elections on 3 November.

Russia is pounding Ukraine's power grid and cities ahead of winter, with a mounting civilian toll, including 14 people killed on a Dnipro railway platform on 29 October. Ukraine's long-range drone strikes on Russian refineries, one of its most effective operations against Moscow, target the oil money that pays for that war. Trump has pressed Kyiv for weeks to stop them, blaming them for high global fuel prices, and Ukraine went quiet without saying so and without getting what it asked for in return, WSJ reported. The Samara strike is the first on Russian oil since then. Kyiv has not said whether the pause is over.

Fires spread across a refinery that makes jet fuel for Russia's military

Residents of Novokuibyshevsk reported drones, explosions, and a fire before dawn. Ukrainian Telegram channel Exilenova+ posted the first photos on Telegram at 05:24 Kyiv time, and Russian Telegram channel Astra geolocated the fire to the refinery, citing its open-source analysis of residents' photos.

By morning, Exilenova+ counted at least 11 separate fires at the refinery. Samara Governor Vyacheslav Fedorishchev said air defense and mobile fire groups were repelling an attack, Astra reported. The region had declared a drone alert and closed its airport.

Fire Point said its FP-1 drones scored numerous hits on the refinery grounds, and that one of the units hit hydrotreats diesel fuel. The footage published so far shows several smoke columns over the plant but does not show which units burned. The Rosneft-owned refinery has a design capacity of 8.8 million tons of oil a year and is one of the main producers of jet fuel, according to its website. Astra says it supplies jet fuel to Russia's military. The plant lies about 910 km from the front line. Ukraine's General Staff has not commented.

Ukrainian drones have hit the plant before. Ukraine's military said its forces hit it in August and caused a fire.

It is the first fire at a Russian refinery since 15 October, when Ryazan's governor reported one at the city's refinery. It is also the first reported strike on Russia's oil industry since 20 October, when Ukrainian drones hit a Druzhba pipeline pumping station in Tambov Oblast. WSJ called that strike the last before the pause.

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All three Rosneft Samara refineries now offline or reduced as drones halt Kuibyshevsky operations yesterday

WSJ claims: Ukraine paused refinery strikes until after the US midterms

Ukraine's military paused its strikes on Russian refineries after weeks of pressure from Trump shook Kyiv's confidence in US support, people with knowledge of the operations told WSJ. The unofficial pause began early last week and is expected to last until after the midterms, and possibly deeper into November. Units carrying out long-range strikes were told in mid-October that the refinery campaign was effectively on hold once missions already under way were completed, two military officials said. Hours after the report, the Novokuibyshevsk strike called that account into question.

Ukraine's government has not announced a pause. Zelenskyy told reporters in Kyiv on 27 October that “our guys tried to be a little more careful during these days. But they do not have an order” not to hit refineries, according to WSJ. He said drone units were hitting other kinds of targets in Russia.

Trump's envoy Jared Kushner repeated the demand to stop the strikes at a meeting with Zelenskyy in Oslo on 20 October, two US officials told WSJ. One of them called the conversation “very tough.” Kushner, who joined remotely, said he and envoy Steve Witkoff were spending a lot of time, energy, and jet fuel on mediating with Moscow, and that a 30-day pause on refineries would be a way for Ukraine to show gratitude, the official said.

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Energy truce with strings attached: Kyiv reportedly told to spare Russian refineries or lose US intelligence and arms

Zelenskyy had asked for something in return, WSJ reported: a mutual energy ceasefire with Russia, Patriot missiles for Ukraine's grid, or permission to use Starlink inside Russia so drones could destroy Russian missile launchers. None of those ideas got far. Some of Kyiv's European backers also nudged Zelenskyy to pause until after the midterms, a senior European official said.

The pause showed in Russia's oil industry. Russian refinery utilization at the end of October was 25% higher than at the start of the month as drone attacks subsided, Reuters reported, according to The Moscow Times.

Russia claims over 1,000 drones for a second night as Moscow's airports close again

Russia's Defense Ministry said it downed 1,043 Ukrainian drones overnight over 19 regions, including Samara Oblast, the Moscow region, and Tatarstan. The night before, it claimed 1,214.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin stated that 862 drones flew toward the Moscow region between 20:30 on 29 October and 07:30 on 30 October, that most were downed on the far approaches, and that 170 were downed on approach to the capital. Russia's aviation agency restricted flights at all four Moscow airports, Astra reported. A day earlier, more than 460 flights were delayed or canceled at Moscow and St. Petersburg airports, Astra counted.

In Starodub, in Russia's Bryansk Oblast, about 35 km from the Ukrainian border, a building of the Konservsushprod plant, which makes canned food for the Russian army, appeared to be on fire in readers' photos and videos, Astra reported, saying the plant was presumably attacked and that its open-source analyst had not verified the footage. The Atesh partisan movement reported a blast in Aleksandrovka in Rostov Oblast, and air defense fire and an explosion in Orel.