Drone strikes in war-torn Sudan have killed hundreds in just three days. Most of the deaths were in West Kordofan state, including in an area contested with South Sudan, sparking fears of a spillover of the war.

The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) reportedly killed 41 people by striking a gathering of Internally Displaced People (IDPs) near Sudan’s southeastern border with Ethiopia in the Blue Nile state last Friday, October 16.

Later on Sunday, October 18, air defenses of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), which heads the government, intercepted multiple suicide drones launched by the RSF. The drones targeted Upper Atbara and Setit dam complex in Gedaref state, and the Khashm El-Girba dam in neighboring Kassala.

The following day, on October 19, the RSF launched a wave of drones toward the airport in the national capital, Khartoum. While the air defenses intercepted most of them, one drone struck near the airport, killing four people, including three children.

The RSF took over the capital soon after starting this war in April 2023 against the SAF, the national army with which it had ruled as part of a military junta. The SAF regained control of the capital in March 2025.

In the meantime, later in October 2025, the RSF consolidated control over most of Sudan’s vast western region of Darfur, overrunning the SAF’s last holdout, El Fasher, and depopulating the city in a campaign deemed genocidal by a UN investigation. 

Read more: A bloodbath visible from space: RSF’s massacres in Sudan’s El Fasher   

After thus taking over Darfur – except for some SAF small holdouts on the border with Chad – the RSF has since been pushing eastward toward Khartoum. The Kordofan region in between, comprising three states, has since become a main front of this war.

Here, on October 18, in West Kordofan’s RSF-controlled town of al-Dabba, SAF struck a transport hub that was crowded on a market day, killing 80 people on the spot. 30 others later died in hospital. Another SAF drone also struck a market in the Al-Mujlad town.

Then, on the morning of October 19, SAF drones struck yet another market it suspected to be a source of fuel supply for the RSF, killing 153 people in Abyei, an area disputed by Sudan and South Sudan, ever since the latter seceded from the former in 2011.​

This area in the Nile oil basin has over 4,000 UN peacekeepers and is jointly administered by Sudan and South Sudan. South Sudan’s government summoned Sudan’s ambassador to protest this strike.

A spillover of Sudan’s war into South Sudan could have dire consequences, especially since South Sudan, the world’s youngest country, is itself at a heightened risk of slipping back into its own disastrous civil war, which had claimed up to 400,000 lives between late 2013 and mid-2015.​

The death count of the war in Sudan has been lost after exceeding 150,000 as early as June 2024. By the time the war entered its fourth year in April 2026, drone strikes had become the main driver of civilian casualties in this war, causing 80% of all the civilian deaths in the first four months of this year, killing at least 880 people.  

“We are alarmed by the continued deadly drone strikes across the country that are killing civilians, including children, and that are disrupting essential services,” UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said on October 19.

​Read more: The war in Sudan is “between two wings of a comprador parasitic capitalist class”

Russian tech giant Yandex's data center in Sasovo burned out from the inside, a Ukrainian OSINT analyst wrote on 22 October. On cloud-free satellite images, he saw almost no significant holes in its roof. Ukrainian drones hit the site overnight on 8 October.

Sasovo was the first strike on a data center in Russia. It came two weeks after Russia destroyed data centers in Kyiv. Drones then hit Yandex sites in Vladimir and Kaluga, a Sber data center, and a VK data center near St. Petersburg, which VK acknowledged. In occupied Donbas, monitoring channels reported hits on buildings housing telecom operators.

What the analyst sees

The analyst, who goes by Harbuz, runs the Ukrainian OSINT channel Dnipro Osint. His roof reading comes from the images. His interior claim comes from what he called available information: he wrote that a fire broke out inside and put part of the equipment out of action.

In an earlier post, Harbuz wrote that a third of the data center had burned out. In the new one, he writes that the building burned out from the inside. He does not say whether he revised the earlier figure.

Russian outlet Agentstvo studied Airbus images from 12 October. It found damage on about a third of the building. Unlike Harbuz, though, Agentstvo described a blackened western roof with damage resembling holes.

What Yandex says

On 8 October, Yandex stated that the attack caused a fire and forced it to suspend operations at the site, which hosts tens of thousands of servers, Reuters reported. Yandex Cloud and the Disk and Documents services that run on it ran with major disruptions that morning, Russian outlet The Bell reported.

Later that day, the company stated: "The scale of the damage to the infrastructure is still being assessed. For the moment, we cannot confirm whether it is possible to restore the data centre equipment in Sasovo." Two of Yandex's three supercomputers, used to develop its AI model, are housed there.

The same day, journalists asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy whether Ukraine was targeting Russian data centers. He did not refer specifically to the Yandex strike, Reuters noted, but said: "We always respond in mirror-like fashion."

Drones struck the seized Ukrtelecom building in occupied Luhansk overnight on 21 October, hitting the mobile operator Russia’s occupation authorities run there under the name “Lugacom,” Russian Telegram channel Astra and Ukrainian monitoring channels reported. The strike came a night after drones hit “Ugletelecom,” the occupation’s telecom operator in Donetsk, which reportedly runs on equipment seized from Ukrainian companies. Footage posted by Ukrainian monitors shows heavy fire damage inside the Luhansk building. Ukraine has not officially commented.

Ukraine has spent months hitting the supply lines, depots, and infrastructure that sustain Russia’s occupation of southern and eastern Ukraine, with mid-range drones striking trucks, trains, and communications towers well behind the front. This spring the commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces, Robert “Madyar” Brovdi, promised Russian troops in occupied territory a “stone age.” This time the targets were the networks the occupation runs on.

A burned-out Ukrtelecom building in Luhansk

Residents reported explosions in Luhansk overnight, and the former Ukrtelecom building was attacked by a drone, Astra reported, citing its readers. The occupation runs its mobile operator, “Lugacom,” from the seized building, and built its network on equipment taken from Ukraine’s Kyivstar, according to dev.ua. The building also houses an occupation-run telecom services center. Luhansk is situated in the easternmost Ukrainian region and has been occupied since 2014.

Ukrainian monitoring channel Exilenova+ said Ukraine’s Defense Forces struck the building, which also hosts an information technology and technical support center. A video it posted shows extensive burning inside. Petro Andriushchenko, head of the Center for the Study of Occupation, said the drones hit a data center in the building.

Occupation officials had not commented, according to NV. In September, drones hit a hardware store in Luhansk, sparking a large fire. Earlier this month, fires broke out at a Russian supply base in Khrustalnyi, also in occupied Luhansk Oblast.

Donetsk’s occupation telecom operator hit the night before

The night before, drones struck “Ugletelecom,” one of the key communications operators in occupied Donetsk Oblast, Exilenova+ reported. It operates from an office building at 60 Postysheva Street, where Ukraine’s state holding company Donbasugleobespechenie was registered before the occupation, according to RBC-Ukraine. Astra found about 27 organizations registered at the address, including internet provider Fticom, and damage on four floors.

Ugletelecom runs on equipment seized from Ukrainian companies, Donetsk-focused outlet Kochegarka reported, citing local sources. The occupation also moved local businesses that had used Ukrtelecom over to it, according to dev.ua. Residents had reported powerful explosions in the city.

Power cuts across the occupied territories

In occupied Donetsk Oblast, drones attacked the 330 kV Pivdenna substation in Chystiakove, and locals reported outages, Telegram channel DroneBomber said, calling the report preliminary. Occupied Donetsk went into a blackout on the evening of 20 October after strikes on its power supply, Andriushchenko said. He also reported air defense activity and hits in the Mariupol area.

In occupied Crimea, residents of Krasnoperekopsk reported explosions and hits near the railway station, then partial power cuts, monitoring channel Crimean Wind said. In occupied Melitopol, drones tried to attack the city’s power facilities at around 03:30 but missed, Russian senator Dmitry Rogozin claimed.

French mapper Clément Molin counted 770 confirmed Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian trucks in the logistics zone 10 km behind the front line in September, up from 630 in August.

Russian drones struck a 24-story apartment building in Kyiv, a university building in Kremenchuk, warehouses, and hypermarkets overnight on 21 October, killing two people in the capital and an elderly couple near Kharkiv, Ukrainian officials said. The attack went well beyond Ukraine’s power grid, hitting places where people live, study, and shop. Over the past day, Russian strikes also killed three more civilians and injured dozens across several oblasts.

Russia has kept up nightly drone and missile attacks on Ukrainian cities through the autumn, mostly aimed at the energy system. It struck Ukraine’s energy 76 times during a US-declared truce, and fired 39 ballistic missiles at the grid three days after Washington announced it. This time the targets also included homes, a university, warehouses, and shops.

Overnight, Russia launched 186 Shahed-type and other attack drones, 88 of them jet-powered, along with Iskander-K cruise missiles, Ukraine’s Air Force said. Air defenses downed or jammed 150 drones. Hits were recorded at 27 locations, and debris fell at 13 more.

Two killed on the 20th floor in Kyiv

A drone hit a 24-story residential building in Kyiv’s Sviatoshynskyi district at the level of the 20th floor, starting a fire, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. The fire spread over about 70 square meters, and rescuers found the bodies of two people while clearing debris, the State Emergency Service said. Two people were injured and hospitalized, Klitschko said, including a 46-year-old man who was walking past the building, according to the police.

In the Desnianskyi district, seven parked cars caught fire, the State Emergency Service said; police put the number at about 10. The evening before, drones hit a warehouse building in Desnianskyi and a transport facility in Solomianskyi district.

An elderly couple killed near Kharkiv

In the village of Korotych near Kharkiv, Russian drones killed an 81-year-old woman and an 83-year-old man, Kharkiv Oblast Governor Oleh Syniehubov said. Rescuers recovered their bodies from the rubble of their house, the State Emergency Service said. Eleven people, including a two-month-old boy and an eight-year-old girl, were treated for acute stress, and 13 houses were damaged.

A university, warehouses, and hypermarkets

In Kremenchuk, a drone hit a building of the Mykhailo Ostrohradskyi National University, setting it on fire, the State Emergency Service said. Three people were injured, including a 16-year-old who was hospitalized with a concussion, Poltava Oblast Governor Vitalii Diakivnych said. In the Poltava community, drones damaged an administrative building and warehouses.

In Lviv Oblast, an attack set fire to an enterprise in a village in Lviv district and injured two people, while a house was damaged in a neighboring village, the State Emergency Service said. In Uman, drones hit a hypermarket and damaged a hotel, injuring one person, Cherkasy Oblast Governor Ihor Taburets said.

On the evening of 20 October, a drone hit an Epicentr hypermarket in Pervomaisk, Mykolaiv Oblast, injuring eight people, acting Governor Heorhii Reshetilov said. Russia also struck a hypermarket in Rivne Oblast several times that day, injuring four and forcing rescuers to pull back while they fought the fire, the State Emergency Service said.

More dead and injured over the past day

The overnight strikes followed a day of attacks. In Kyiv, Russian strikes on 20 October killed one person and injured 21, three of them seriously, Klitschko said. An administrative building caught fire, rescuers freed four people trapped on its upper floors, and a healthcare facility was damaged, the State Emergency Service said. In Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, two men were killed and seven people injured that day, regional officials said.

In Kharkiv Oblast, Russian attacks over the past day injured 11 more people in Kharkiv, Derhachi, and Shestakove, Syniehubov said. In Kherson Oblast, 13 people were injured, three of them children, the regional administration reported. In the Chernihiv region, an 89-year-old woman and a young woman were hurt in strikes on villages and on Novhorod-Siverskyi, Governor Viacheslav Chaus said, and a 21-year-old woman was injured in the Sumy community, according to the Sumy regional administration.

More than 5,000 subscribers lost power in Volyn Oblast’s Lutsk district, Governor Roman Romaniuk said. In Ternopil Oblast’s Kremenets district, 7,949 subscribers remained without power after earlier Russian strikes on energy facilities, the regional administration reported.

Drones attacked an oil and fuel pumping station of Russia’s Druzhba pipeline system in Tambov Oblast overnight on 20 October, setting a diesel tank on fire, Ukrainian monitoring channel Exilenova+ reported, citing locals. Druzhba, Russian for “friendship,” is a Soviet-era oil pipeline, about 4,000 km long, that carries Russian crude west to Europe, including through a branch that crosses Ukraine. The struck station is on its Russian section. Tambov Oblast Governor Yevgeny Pervyshov confirmed a fire at an unnamed enterprise in Michurinsk district after what he called a Ukrainian drone attack. The station lies about 400 km from the front line.

Ukraine has spent months striking the refineries, terminals, and pipelines that fund Russia’s war, and its Defense Ministry says the strikes have knocked out more than half of Russia’s refining capacity. Washington wants them stopped. US officials reportedly tied intelligence sharing to a halt in refinery strikes, and US President Donald Trump called their resumption “a disgrace.”

Hours of attack before dawn

Russia’s regional alert system declared a drone threat at 03:38, Ukrainian military outlet Militarnyi reported. By 06:25, Exilenova+ said the Nikolskoye station was under attack, after Michurinsk had been under attack for several hours.

The Nikolskoye fuel pumping station in Russia’s Tambov region is under attack. pic.twitter.com/cA64vMgjsM

— Exilenova+ (@Exilenova_plus) October 20, 2026

Pervyshov said four Ukrainian drones were shot down over the region and no one was hurt. He did not name the site.

More footage from the Nikolskaya oil pumping station. Locals report that a tank containing diesel is on fire. pic.twitter.com/1jvbxSuGHo

— Exilenova+ (@Exilenova_plus) October 20, 2026

Ukraine has not commented. The General Staff’s 20 October list of overnight strikes does not mention Tambov Oblast.

A Druzhba fuel hub hit before

The Nikolskoye station belongs to Transneft, Russia’s state pipeline operator. It stores and pumps crude oil and refined fuels, including diesel, gasoline, and jet fuel. The complex has three tank farms and two pumping stations, and it can move up to 300,000 tonnes a day, according to Current Time.

Ukrainian drones hit a station of the same hub in August 2025, and Ukraine’s General Staff said then that pumping on the pipeline had stopped completely.

Strikes resume despite US pressure

Ukraine paused refinery strikes for three days after Trump announced an “energy ceasefire” on 11 October, while Russia fired 39 ballistic missiles at Ukraine’s grid. Since Kyiv resumed the strikes, drones have also hit an oil terminal and a fuel depot in St. Petersburg.

Kyiv reads other US moves as pressure too, from missed warnings of Russian ballistic launches to a Starlink cap that slows Ukrainian drones. President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy told US senators he had offered a 30-day halt on refinery strikes in exchange for Patriot interceptors, but Trump’s envoys showed no openness.

Ukrainian attacks set an oil export terminal ablaze in St. Petersburg on Sunday, as Kyiv launched more than 1,000 drones across Russia in one of its largest ever aerial bombardments.

The post St. Petersburg Oil Terminal Set Ablaze Amid Massive Wave of Ukraine Drone Strikes appeared first on Breitbart.

Ukrainian drones struck St. Petersburg’s oil terminal, a fuel depot, an Ozon distribution center, and a VK data center overnight, setting off fires across the city, monitoring channels reported. Russian outlet Meduza called it apparently the largest attack on the city and Leningrad Oblast since the war began. Russian officials acknowledged fires, damaged homes and substations, and power cuts.

Russia keeps fighting along the front while bombarding Ukrainian cities and the grid behind it. Ukraine’s long-range drones, in turn, target the oil exports and logistics that fund and supply that war, and Russia’s Baltic oil ports have been hit repeatedly this year. St. Petersburg is a symbolic place: Russia’s so-called second capital and Putin’s hometown.

Oil terminal and fuel depot on fire

Ukrainian forces struck the Petersburg Oil Terminal with FP-1 drones, starting a fire, Ukrainian drone maker Fire Point said. The company described the terminal as one of the region’s largest, handling 12.5 million tonnes of petroleum products a year, including for export.

Piter port and oil facility in one shot pic.twitter.com/KfptwkhsDS

— Exilenova+ (@Exilenova_plus) October 18, 2026

St. Petersburg Governor Aleksandr Beglov acknowledged fires at the terminal and in four city districts, adding that Pulkovo airport had restricted flights. By morning, firefighters were still battling blazes at the terminal, the Ruchyi oil depot, and industrial warehouses in the Kolpinsky district, he wrote. He claimed one person was killed and five injured. Ukrainian monitoring channel Exilenova+ reported that the Ruchyi depot had been burning since the night.

Ozon hub, VK data center, and a bridge

An Ozon distribution center in Kolpinsky district caught fire after the attack, the company said, Russian independent outlet Astra reported. Astra’s open-source intelligence analyst described it as one of Ozon’s busiest fulfillment centers in northwestern Russia, covering up to 79,000 m².

Ozon in St. Peterburg pic.twitter.com/tA9iwRJf7d

— Exilenova+ (@Exilenova_plus) October 18, 2026

FP-1 drones also hit a VK data center in Novosergiyevka, Leningrad Oblast, causing serious damage, Fire Point said. VK acknowledged a drone attack on the site but claimed its services were working normally. Leningrad Oblast Governor Aleksandr Drozdenko claimed air defenses downed 145 drones over the oblast alone. He acknowledged damage to the data center’s transformer equipment and warehouse complex, and minor damage to the Vostochnaya substation. Two other substations in Yanino went offline, cutting power to about 20,000 people, he said.

A drone also hit the cable-stayed bridge over the Korabelny fairway, part of a toll highway linking the city’s north and south, Exilenova+ reported, adding that the extent of the damage was still being clarified. The channel also reported a fire near a Russian Aerospace Forces radar company outside the village of Kaporskoye.

To reach St. Petersburg, Ukrainian drones had to cover 1,000 km across four Russian regions guarded by air defenses and electronic warfare, said Serhii Beskrestnov, adviser to Ukraine’s president on defense technology.

“And these are not cruise missiles with special systems, these are drones that fly at speeds of up to 200 km/h,” he wrote.

Strikes resume after a one-sided truce

The same night, Russia hit Ukraine’s grid again, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy counted 76 Russian strikes on energy since the ceasefire was announced. US President Donald Trump declared the truce on 11 October. Ukraine paused its refinery strikes for three days at Washington’s request, but Russia struck a Kharkiv power plant within hours and kept hitting the grid. Zelenskyy then said Ukraine was resuming strikes on Russian oil and would stop again only in exchange for more US interceptors for its Patriot systems. Trump called the renewed strikes “a disgrace” and said he found Zelenskyy “more difficult to deal with than Putin.”

Ukraine has hit the St. Petersburg area before. In July, drones set fire to Wildberries warehouses near the city. In August, Ukraine began striking Ozon hubs, starting in Samara Oblast. The hubs move dual-use goods such as electronics and drone components.

BUCHAREST, Oct 17 (Reuters) – Romanian F-16 fighter jets shot down two drones over the country’s territorial waters on Saturday, the defense ministry said.  The drones were brought down days after two...

Romanian authorities launched search and rescue operations off the Black Sea coast Thursday after a drone struck a ship which then caught fire, the latest in a spate of strikes that has raised fears that Russia's war in Ukraine is spreading.

Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) detained two men suspected of scouting targets for Russian strikes on Sloviansk and Dnipro, the agency reported on 14 October. Catching both early let it secure Ukrainian reserve command posts and the gas stations the alleged agents had been hunting, the agency added.

Sloviansk anchors the northern end of the Fortress Belt, the chain of fortified cities that has held Ukraine’s defense of Donetsk Oblast since 2014. Russia is pushing to seize them, and its aircraft bombed a residential area of Sloviansk on 11 October. Where Ukrainian convoys stop and troops gather is exactly what Russian handlers allegedly asked these suspects to supply.

A gas station worker suspected of filming convoys

The first suspect worked at a gas station complex in Sloviansk, Donetsk Oblast. Russian intelligence allegedly reached him through a former classmate who left for Russia after the full-scale invasion and now works for its special services, the SBU said. He then allegedly used his phone to secretly film Ukrainian army convoys at or near gas stations. He was allegedly supposed to send the photos and videos to Russia to help it prepare a targeted strike. He also allegedly drove his own car around other gas stations and bridges that the Defense Forces use for logistics.

Spotted through Telegram comments

The second suspect, a former Pokrovsk resident, moved to Dnipro in 2024 and settled in a dormitory. Russian intelligence noticed him through pro-Kremlin comments he posted in Telegram chats, investigators say. A female handler in Russia allegedly tasked him with guiding missile and drone attacks on places in the city where Ukrainian troops and equipment were concentrated. He allegedly scouted on foot or took public transport to reach outlying districts.

Officers seized computers and smartphones containing evidence of the men’s alleged work for Russia. Both are suspected of treason under martial law and of unauthorized dissemination of information on Ukrainian troop movements or deployment, under Articles 111(2) and 114-2(2) of the Criminal Code. They remain in custody without bail and face up to life imprisonment with confiscation of property. The SBU’s office for Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts ran the operation under the Donetsk Oblast Prosecutor’s Office.

A drone strike on 10 October put more than half of the large fuel tanks out of action at an oil-loading terminal in Russia’s Rostov-on-Don, Russian news Telegram channel Astra found. The terminal loads fuel onto river and sea tankers for export, and it burned for two days while a local channel wrote that reeds might be on fire. Neither Kyiv nor Moscow has officially acknowledged the hit. It came hours after US President Donald Trump announced a diesel deal with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

Russia has spent the autumn hammering Ukraine’s power grid ahead of winter. Ukraine’s long-range drones keep hitting the refineries, depots, and terminals that fuel Russia’s army and earn it export revenue. Every burned tank turns that revenue into repair bills, while Moscow is already subsidizing its own fuel pumps. A refinery-only truce of the kind the White House described a day after the strike would shield the Russian plants that feed terminals like this one.

Seven of 12 tanks out of action

Astra’s analysts concluded from eyewitness footage that at least seven of the terminal’s 12 large tanks had been knocked out. Ukrainian monitoring channel Supernova+ counted seven burned-out tanks and one more scorched by the fire.

The fire was still burning in the early hours of 12 October. Local channel Rostov Glavny posted video of the burning tank farm, passing on rumors that reeds were on fire and noting the city’s second day under smoke, The Moscow Times reported. Footage filmed in the daytime on 12 October showed no more open flames, only gray smoke, according to Astra.

A terminal that loads fuel for export

The site is the oil-loading terminal of the Novoshakhtinsk Oil Products Plant, formerly known as Yug Rusi, in Rostov-on-Don’s Zheleznodorozhny District. It receives, stores, and transships fuel onto river and sea tankers, including for export, Ukrainian monitoring channel Exilenova+ said.

The terminal also supplies fuel to the Russian army and earns Moscow hard currency, ZN reported. The Moscow Times put its loading capacity at 3.5 million tons a year and its tank farm at about 60,000 cubic meters, roughly 16 million gallons.

The refinery itself stands in the town of Novoshakhtinsk near the border with Russian-occupied Luhansk Oblast. The terminal sits on the Don River with access to the Sea of Azov, Ukrainian military outlet Militarnyi noted. Ukraine hit the refinery in June, and Ukraine’s General Staff reported striking the Yug Rusi terminal on 9 July, placing it in Bataysk.

A night of drones over the region

Exilenova+ posted images of the burning terminal in the early hours of 10 October. It presented them as the site after Trump’s phone call with Putin. The channel later shared NASA satellite fire data showing the blaze.

Rostov Oblast Governor Yuri Slyusar claimed the attack injured six people. Slyusar further stated air defenses downed more than 100 drones over the region. Radio Liberty’s Russian Service noted that neither side had officially confirmed the hit on the terminal.

Hours after the US-Russia diesel deal

The strike came hours after Trump announced on 9 October that Russia had agreed to supply diesel to US and global markets. The US Treasury then cleared the trade with a sanctions license.

On 11 October, Trump declared an “energy ceasefire” between Russia and Ukraine. Under it, he expects Ukraine to stop striking Russian refineries, a White House official told Axios.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that evening that Ukraine’s armed forces had received all relevant orders. Neither Ukrainian monitoring channels nor Russian officials have reported a new strike on a Russian oil facility since. On 13 October, Zelenskyy said Ukraine was ready to guarantee an energy ceasefire if Russia took matching steps.

Ukrainian forces have attacked one of Russia’s most important oil transport and blending facilities for the third time this month. The Samara hub handles crude from several major producing regions and plays a central role in preparing Russia’s Urals export blend, making it a target of considerably greater strategic significance than an ordinary oil depot.

Ukraine has intensified its campaign against Russia’s oil industry with another drone strike on the Samara linear production and dispatch station, a major facility in the pipeline network operated by state-controlled Transneft. The latest attack, during the night of 9–10 October, followed earlier strikes on 2 and 7 October, which Ukrainian military authorities say caused extensive damage to storage tanks and associated infrastructure.

The significance of Samara extends well beyond the destruction of stored oil. Situated near the settlement of Prosvet in Russia’s Samara region, the installation is a junction where crude oil arriving from Western Siberia, Tatarstan and the Volga-Urals producing regions is received, stored, blended and redistributed. Its role makes it an important link between Russian oil production, domestic refining and export markets.

According to the Ukrainian General Staff’s operational report, Samara is responsible for blending crude with different sulphur contents to produce Urals, Russia’s principal export grade. Ukraine’s military says the facility also contributes to supplying the Russian armed forces.

Why Samara matters to Russia’s oil exports

Unlike an oil refinery, where crude is processed into petrol, diesel and other fuels, the Samara installation performs a function earlier in the supply chain. It is one of the points where different grades of Russian crude are brought together to produce a commercially standardised export mixture.

Western Siberian crude generally has different characteristics from oil extracted in the Volga-Urals basin, including variations in sulphur content and density. Blending these streams is essential to maintaining the specifications of Urals crude, which is supplied to refineries and sold on international markets.

Samara’s importance also reflects the sheer scale of the infrastructure concentrated at the site. Ukrainian Special Operations Forces describe a facility where four major oil pipelines converge, supported by 71 storage tanks with a combined capacity exceeding 1.6 million cubic metres.

The site’s central role is not simply a Ukrainian assessment. Transneft-Privoĺga’s management previously described the Samara installation as having Europe’s largest oil storage tank farm and identified its blending station and associated pumping installations as part of a major modernisation programme.

Approximately 140 million tonnes of oil passes through the Samara complex annually. That figure would make the installation an important concentration point within the wider Russian pipeline system.

The consequences of sustained disruption could therefore extend beyond the immediate loss of storage capacity. Damage to blending operations, connecting pipelines or loading equipment could interfere with the movement of crude towards refineries and export routes. The precise effect would depend on the functioning of alternative facilities, available spare capacity and the speed of repairs.

Three attacks in nine days

The first strike, on 2 October, reportedly damaged 11 storage tanks with capacities of 20,000 cubic metres each, three larger tanks of 50,000 cubic metres, sections of pipeline and an automated loading station. The Security Service of Ukraine confirmed that its personnel had participated in the operation alongside other branches of the armed forces.

A further strike on 7 October destroyed four large storage tanks and caused a substantial fire, according to Ukraine’s General Staff. Ukrainian Special Operations Forces subsequently confirmed another attack on 10 October, although the damage from that operation remains under assessment. The reported destruction and damage have not been independently verified in full.

The repeated attacks indicate an effort to produce cumulative disruption rather than rely on a single operation to disable an extensive industrial complex.

This approach is consistent with Ukraine’s broader campaign against Russia’s refining industry. As EU Today examined in August, repeated strikes on processing facilities can create difficulties that extend beyond the immediate damage, particularly when specialist equipment requires lengthy repairs.

From refinery attacks to the wider oil network

The campaign against Samara represents a significant extension of that strategy. Refineries remain important targets because they produce the fuels required by Russia’s armed forces and domestic economy. Transport and blending facilities, however, determine whether crude reaches those refineries in the required quantities and specifications.

Continuous attacks are essential because much of the damage inflicted by drones is repairable. Individual installations may return to service within days or weeks, meaning the cumulative effect depends heavily on whether further disruption occurs before repairs and production have fully resumed.

Russia’s refining industry remains heavily dependent on specialist equipment and technologies historically supplied by Western manufacturers. Sanctions have restricted access to replacement components, while domestically manufactured equipment and Chinese alternatives are not always technically compatible with existing installations. These constraints complicate repairs, prolong shutdowns and limit Russia’s ability to restore damaged refining capacity.

Samara presents a somewhat different vulnerability. Its importance rests on the concentration of pipeline connections, storage and blending operations at one location. A sustained interruption could affect several parts of the oil supply chain simultaneously, although the available evidence does not yet establish that the wider network has suffered a prolonged shutdown.

Ukraine has already demonstrated its willingness to strike other logistical installations. A recent attack on the Volodarskaya petroleum-products station near Moscow targeted another important part of Russia’s fuel distribution system.

Implications for Russia’s war economy

Oil remains central to Russia’s export earnings and federal finances, while the availability of refined petroleum products influences military logistics, transport and industrial activity.

The immediate economic significance of the Samara attacks will depend on how much operational capacity has been lost, whether crude can be redirected through alternative infrastructure and how quickly Transneft can restore the damaged facilities.

There is an important distinction between destroying storage tanks and preventing oil from moving through a network. The former reduces available capacity; the latter can impose broader restrictions on production, refining and exports. Establishing the extent to which the latest strikes have achieved either effect will require further operational evidence.

Nevertheless, the decision to return repeatedly to Samara illustrates a development in Ukraine’s campaign against Russia’s energy sector. Rather than concentrating exclusively on the refineries that convert crude into fuel, Kyiv is also attacking infrastructure that connects oil production to its commercial and military end users.

For Moscow, the vulnerability of Samara is particularly consequential because the installation occupies a central position in the movement and preparation of Urals crude. Any sustained loss of its blending, storage or distribution functions would introduce additional pressure into an oil system already facing repeated attacks on its refineries and export infrastructure.

The latest operation therefore raises a question extending beyond the damage to one industrial site: whether Russia can maintain reliable oil flows when several interconnected stages of its energy supply chain are subjected to recurring disruption.

Russia's seaborne exports of refined oil products rose to a three-month high in September, but the growth came from cheaper fuel oil and naphtha as diesel shipments fell to their lowest in more than a decade, Bloomberg reported, citing Vortexa data. Russia kept diesel at home after Ukrainian refinery strikes and paid oil companies to supply its pumps, while high crude prices lifted its crude export earnings.

During the ongoing deep-strike campaign, Ukraine's long-range drones have knocked out more than half of Russia's oil refining capacity, Kyiv says, and Russia's budget oil revenues are falling even as it raises war spending. High global crude prices are softening that blow.

Cheaper fuel out

Total seaborne product exports reached about 1.17 million barrels a day in September. Fuel oil shipments rose 6% to about 613,000 barrels a day, the highest since April. Naphtha, a feedstock for petrochemicals, jumped 35% to 363,000 barrels a day. Exports of refinery feedstocks, including vacuum gasoil, rose to about 32,000 barrels a day, according to Bloomberg.

The trade has moved north. Almost 80% of fuel oil cargoes left from Baltic ports, and naphtha loadings there rose almost 50% as Ukrainian attacks disrupted Black Sea infrastructure. In September, Ukraine reported hitting an oil terminal in Novorossiysk, Russia's main Black Sea oil port—one in a string of attacks on Russia's Black Sea ports and oil sites.

Diesel kept at home

Diesel and gasoil exports fell 28% to 144,000 barrels a day, the lowest monthly volume in Vortexa data going back more than a decade. Russia has restricted diesel exports to protect domestic supply after Ukrainian attacks on its refineries. Drones kept hitting them into October, from a Lukoil refinery in Volgograd to Gazprom's Salavat complex in Bashkortostan.

In September, Russia paid oil companies the biggest subsidy in more than four years to keep road fuel on the domestic market. It also imported about 350,000 tonnes of motor fuel by sea, mostly gasoline from India, Morocco, and Türkiye, Reuters calculations showed. Officials are considering letting some producers resume diesel exports in October to avoid overstocking, according to Interfax.

The diesel squeeze has reached the White House. US President Donald Trump stated on 30 September that diesel was hurt "not by the Middle East, but by what's going on in Russia, because those diesel refineries are being knocked out at a pretty alarming rate."

Crude carries the revenue

Russia's crude exports reached about 3.99 million barrels a day in the week to 27 September, and the estimated value of its seaborne crude shipments neared its highest since the full-scale invasion began, Bloomberg reported. Brent crude traded at about $102.60 a barrel on 9 October, according to Trading Economics data.

Drones struck a plant making fuel components for Russia's Kh-101 cruise missiles and a second Yandex data center overnight on 9 October, Russian officials and monitoring channels reported. The same night, fires were reported at a refinery in Russia's far north and an oil depot near Belgorod. Russia claimed it downed more than 500 drones, and Ukraine has not claimed any of the strikes.

Ukraine has spent months hitting refineries and arms suppliers deep inside Russia. Russia, meanwhile, keeps firing Kh-101 cruise missiles at Ukrainian cities, including the one that killed 22 people in Pryluky on 7 October.

The plant behind the Kh-101's fuel

The Redkino Experimental Plant in Tver Oblast came under attack overnight, Ukrainian monitoring channel Exilenova+ reported. It said the plant makes components of Decilin-M, a fuel for Kh-55 and Kh-101 cruise missiles, as well as additives for diesel and aviation kerosene.

Tver Oblast Governor Vitaly Korolev claimed a plant in Redkino caught fire as a drone attack was being repelled. He did not name the plant. No workers were hurt, he said.

The plant also makes ferrocene derivatives, which serve as burn catalysts in solid-fuel rocket motors, Militarnyi reported. The UK sanctioned it in September 2025. Drones attacked it in September 2023 and twice in one night in June 2024, the outlet said.

In February, drones of the Security Service of Ukraine's (SBU) Alpha unit struck the plant, sparking a large fire, SBU sources told Kyiv Post. The Kh-101 is the missile Russia used against Pryluky on 7 October, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.

Yandex loses a second data center

Part of Yandex's data center in Kaluga was damaged in the drone attack, and several modules were completely knocked out, the company's press service told Interfax, Russian newspaper Kommersant reported. Some Yandex services may run with interruptions, no one was hurt, and the company is still assessing the damage, Yandex said.

Kaluga Oblast Governor Vladislav Shapsha claimed nine people were injured in the overnight attack on the region. A day earlier, a drone attack forced Yandex to fully shut its data center in Sasovo, Ryazan Oblast.

A refinery in the north, a depot near Belgorod

Locals reported an attack on the Ukhta refinery in the Komi Republic, followed by a fire, Exilenova+ said. The Lukoil-owned plant can process about 4.2 million metric tons of oil a year, making gasoline, diesel, fuel oil, and vacuum gasoil. The extent of the damage is unclear.

An oil depot north of Belgorod was also burning after the night's attack, the channel posted. Belgorod's regional headquarters claimed two people were killed and four injured, including a child, in the Belgorod district.

A large fire also broke out in Pushkino near Moscow, likely at a truck parking lot, Astra reported. The cause is unknown.

Repeated strikes on Redkino target a specialty fuel that Russia's cruise missiles depend on, while two Yandex data centers hit in two nights bring the war to services ordinary Russians use every day.

Russia has shown a drone interceptor built on the Alazan, a civilian anti-hail rocket, Militarnyi reported. The sample went on display at a weapons exhibition that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin toured at the Chebarkul training range in the Urals on 2 October.

Ukraine now sends drones at Russia by the hundreds, by Moscow's own count. Russia's Defense Ministry claimed its air defenses intercepted nearly 900 overnight into 6 October. Russia's missile-based air defense was built to repel aircraft raids and a few cruise missiles, not swarms of low-flying drones.

In May, Ukrainian intelligence said Russia was adding four regiments, 24 battalions, and 162 batteries to counter Ukrainian strike drones. The converted Alazan, which Militarnyi calls an anti-drone system, is one more piece of that search. Meanwhile, the commander of Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces, Robert Brovdi, said his forces struck 300 Russian air-defense assets between January and 19 September.

From hail reagent to shrapnel

Based on the size of the sample on display, the interceptor builds on the Alazan-2M or Alazan-6 series, Militarnyi assessed. The outlet put the stated cost at up to $12,000 per unit but did not say who named the figure. In civilian service, the rocket flies about 10 km, climbs up to 8 km, and carries about 0.5 kg of reagent. For air defense, the developers plan to replace that reagent with a fragmentation warhead.

Militarnyi's analysis of the published photos describes the front end as a steering assembly: four cruciform deflector fins, probably paired with a seeker or a fuze. At the rear sit folding stabilizers and the open nozzle of a solid-fuel motor, held in a metal cradle.

One sample among 300 exhibits

The Kremlin's account of the visit lists more than 300 weapons on display, including interceptor drones, but does not mention the rocket. Propaganda channel Russia 1 aired the interceptor in its report from the visit, and the Kremlin pool of state news agency RIA posted photos.

Israeli forces continued attacks across Gaza Strip Tuesday, killing and and wounding others in airstrikes and gunfire, while another Palestinian succumbed to wounds sustained in an attack the previous day

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A large fire has broken out at the Volodarskaya petroleum-products station outside Moscow following an extensive overnight drone attack. The facility occupies an important position in the pipeline network supplying petrol, diesel and aviation fuel to the Russian capital and its principal airports.

A major fire was reported at the Volodarskaya linear production and dispatch station in Moscow region early on Tuesday, bringing Ukraine’s campaign against Russian fuel infrastructure to another important point in the capital’s supply network.

Footage published from the area around Konstantinovo showed a substantial blaze at the facility, with reports from local residents that storage tanks were burning. The material identified the site as the Volodarskaya station, operated by Transneft-Upper Volga and connected to the petroleum-products network serving the Moscow region.

The extent of the damage was not immediately clear. There had been no detailed assessment from Transneft by Tuesday morning establishing whether pumping equipment, pipelines or only storage facilities had been affected. This distinction will determine whether the attack produces a temporary disruption or a more significant problem for Moscow’s fuel distribution system.

The strike formed part of a large overnight drone attack on Moscow and surrounding districts. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin reported repeated interceptions of drones approaching the capital, while air-defence activity continued across Moscow region. Russian aviation authorities temporarily restricted operations at Vnukovo, Domodedovo, Sheremetyevo and Zhukovsky airports for flight-safety reasons.

There is no evidence at this stage that the airport restrictions resulted from fuel shortages. They were imposed during the drone attack itself. The longer-term significance of Volodarskaya lies instead in the station’s role within the pipeline and storage infrastructure serving the Russian capital.

A major link in Moscow’s fuel network

Volodarskaya is connected to Moscow’s ring petroleum-products pipeline, through which petrol, diesel and aviation kerosene can be moved between refineries, storage facilities and major consumers.

Its importance is documented by Transneft itself. In 2024, the company said it had returned a 32-kilometre petroleum-products pipeline between the Moscow refinery and Volodarskaya to operation as part of a project to increase fuel deliveries across Moscow region.

According to the company’s figures, the project allowed aviation-fuel deliveries to Moscow’s airports to rise almost twofold, to as much as three million tonnes a year. Potential diesel deliveries to Moscow region consumers increased to 2.8 million tonnes annually, while petrol volumes reached 1.6 million tonnes. Transneft specifically identified Vnukovo, Domodedovo and Sheremetyevo as airports supplied through the expanded system.

Transneft has also expanded storage at Volodarskaya. The company previously said it had commissioned additional petroleum-product tanks at the station to support fuel supplies to Moscow and aviation-fuel transportation to the capital’s airports.

Those figures do not mean that every litre of fuel consumed by Moscow depends on Volodarskaya. Russia can move petroleum products by rail and road, and the Moscow region has other storage and distribution facilities. But replacing pipeline volumes on the scale handled by the Moscow system would place additional demands on those alternatives, particularly if disruption were prolonged.

The attack also follows repeated Ukrainian strikes against refining infrastructure supplying European Russia. On 20 September, EU Today reported that a mass drone attack had hit the Moscow Oil Refinery at Kapotnya, one of the main fuel-processing plants serving the capital. The strike reportedly affected its ELOU-AVT-6 primary processing unit, increasing pressure on a refinery that had already been targeted earlier in the year.

The broader campaign has moved beyond individual refineries. Ukraine has increasingly targeted different stages of Russia’s energy system, including storage depots, pumping infrastructure, ports and export terminals. Earlier attacks on the Omsk refinery and Baltic export infrastructure illustrated Kyiv’s effort to put pressure on both domestic fuel processing and the logistics through which Russian oil reaches international markets.

That approach is intended to force Russia to repair several parts of the system simultaneously rather than simply compensate for the temporary loss of production at one refinery. EU Today has previously examined how sustained strikes can put physical pressure on Russia’s oil economy where sanctions alone have limits.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on 3 October that Ukraine intended to intensify attacks on Russian oil refineries in response to Moscow’s continuing strikes against Ukrainian cities, while maintaining that Ukrainian operations would not deliberately target civilians.

Volodarskaya adds another element to that campaign. A refinery converts crude oil into usable fuels; a pumping and storage station determines how those products reach consumers. Damaging one without the other may create disruption that can be bypassed. Sustained damage to both processing and distribution infrastructure is more difficult to compensate for.

Much therefore depends on what happened inside Volodarskaya overnight. If the damage is confined to several storage tanks, the Moscow fuel network may be able to absorb the loss. Damage to pumping installations or pipeline connections would have wider consequences, particularly if the facility is attacked repeatedly.

The strike nevertheless demonstrates that a fuel installation closely connected to Moscow’s aviation and transport system can be reached despite the dense air-defence network surrounding the capital. The scale of its effect will become clearer once satellite imagery and operational information show which parts of the Volodarskaya complex were actually damaged.