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Ukrainian drones strike Russian oil facilities

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Bashkiria strike signals increasing range of Kyiv's drones

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Ukraine says it reached drone production parity with

Russia

By Tom Balmforth

LONDON, May 9 (Reuters) - A Ukrainian drone struck a

major oil processing plant in Russia's Bashkiria region on

Thursday from some 1,500 km (932 miles) away, a Kyiv

intelligence source said, its longest-range such attack since

the start of the war.

Ukraine also hit two oil depots in southern Russia, as Kyiv

tries to undermine Russian forces pressing along front lines on

its territory by attacking energy facilities that are crucial to

funding the economy and the war.

Russia's emergency service said a drone attack damaged a

pumping station building at Gazprom's Neftekhim Salavat oil

processing, petrochemical and fertiliser complex in Bashkiria,

Russia's largest such plant, state RIA news agency reported.

The governor of the region said the plant was functioning as

usual despite the attack. Reuters could not establish where the

drone was launched and what kind of device it was. The nearest

government-held part of Ukraine is about 1,400 km away.

The Kyiv source said the drone flew 1,500 km, calling it a

record, and hit a catalytic cracking unit in an attack that

showed "Russian refineries and oil depots serving the military

complex cannot feel safe even in the deep rear".

Moscow says such attacks amount to terrorism and has

launched what it says are revenge strikes that have pounded

Ukraine's energy infrastructure since mid-March, raising fears

about the resilience of the Ukrainian power system.

Kyiv has stepped up its drone attacks on oil processing

facilities in Russia since the start of the year, disrupting 15%

of Russia's oil refining capacity according to an estimate by a

NATO official at the beginning of April.

Reuters calculations on April 15 showed that Russia had been

able to repair some key oil refineries hit by drones, reducing

capacity idled by the attacks to about 10% from almost 14% at

the end of March.

REACHING PARITY

Unable to rapidly match Russia's vast arsenal of cruise and

ballistic missiles, Kyiv has focused on developing and producing

long-range drones so it can hit back at Russia, which has bombed

Ukraine throughout the 26-month-old invasion.

The head of the state arms manufacturer said on Wednesday

that Ukraine was producing the same number of deep strike drones

as Russia, claiming to have reached parity on a key type of

weapon Moscow has used for long-range attacks.

The Ukrainian source said that Kyiv's drones also struck two

oil depots near the town of Anapa in Russia's southern Krasnodar

region causing large-scale fires overnight. Both attacks were

conducted by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), the source

said.

The depots were used as transshipment points to supply fuel

to Russian troops in the nearby occupied peninsula of Crimea,

the source said.

Russian authorities said a Ukrainian drone attack caused a

fire and damaged several oil tanks at a refinery in Krasnodar

region. About six drones were destroyed, but debris fell on a

facility near the village of Yurovka, sparking a fire, they

wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

"The SBU will continue to reduce Russia's economic and

logistics potential for waging war," the source said.