One individual sustained injuries following a suspected Ukrainian drone strike that ignited a massive fire at one of Russia’s largest oil refineries in Ufa, located in the southern Russian republic of Bashkortostan, approximately 1,000 miles from the Ukrainian border.
A worker at the facility was hospitalized with eye injuries but was able to return to work after receiving treatment, according to the region’s health authorities.
Emergency services later declared the area safe, stating that the fire had been extinguished and that “no excess of harmful substances has been recorded near the plant.”
Reports from Russian social media channels indicated that explosions were heard at the refinery shortly before the fire erupted. However, Kyiv, which has previously targeted Russia’s energy infrastructure, has not made any public statements regarding the incident.
Ukraine’s Pravda news agency cited a Telegram channel affiliated with Russian secret services, which claimed that drones had struck the facility, causing powerful explosions that reverberated across the city.
According to the report, the drones made direct hits on oil storage tanks, and critical feedstock supply pipelines sustained significant damage.
Russia’s Emergencies Ministry stated that the fire originated near an incinerator, attributing it “presumably due to technological processes.”
Meanwhile, Russia’s state-run TASS news agency reported that investigators from the ministry and fire lab experts were examining the site.
Bashneft, a partially state-owned company operating three refineries in and around Ufa, asserted that the fire and its aftermath posed no threat to the local population or the environment and that production remained unaffected.
The refinery primarily processes crude oil extracted from fields in Bashkiria and western Siberia, with a production capacity of 168,000 barrels per day.
On the same day, the Ukrainian Armed Forces reported a deadly Russian missile strike on a staging area in the village of Cherkaske, near the eastern city of Dnipro, on Saturday. The attack resulted in casualties among Ukrainian soldiers, though the exact number of killed and injured remains unconfirmed.
The strike was carried out using a mobile-launched Iskander-M short-range “quasi” ballistic missile and followed the detection of a surveillance drone in the area.
Commander of Ukraine’s Ground Forces, Mykhailo Drapatyi, attributed the incident to bureaucracy, incompetence, and outdated procedures, vowing that there would be no concealment of the true scale of the casualties or the circumstances leading to the attack.
“The war requires quick decisions, responsibility, and new safety standards; otherwise, we will lose more than we have,” he stated on social media.
“Everyone who made decisions that day, and everyone who did not make them on time, will be held accountable. No one will hide behind explanations or formal reports,” Drapatyi added.