The Ukrainian military attacked a major oil refinery in the city of Nizhnekamsk in Tatarstan early on Monday morning, with local officials saying drones struck multiple areas across the city. At least 13 people have been confirmed killed, according to a report by local governor Rustam Minnikhanov, while Nizhnekamsk mayor Radmir Belyayev put the total number of wounded at 39.
Russian investigators said they had opened a criminal case into what they described as a terrorist attack, alleging that Ukraine had struck residential areas and that a child was among the dead.
Tatarstan declared a day of mourning. Additional medical teams were deployed to Nizhnekamsk from the nearby city of Naberezhnye Chelny.
The independent Russian outlet Astra conducted an open source intelligence (OSINT) analysis of one of the published videos and concluded that the Nizhnekamskneftekhim plant was likely attacked. Footage filmed by local residents showed a fire and a column of smoke rising above the industrial zone. The site of the strike had not been officially confirmed at the time Astra released its analysis.
Later, Ukraine’s General Staff confirmed on Telegram that it targeted the TANECO refinery in Nizhnekamsk, while other strikes hit a repair workshop in Khrustalnyi in Ukraine’s Luhansk Region, a logistics warehouse in Novoselivka, and a field artillery depot in Boieve in the Donetsk Region.
The General Staff also clarified the results of previous attacks. It said an AVT-6 crude distillation unit was damaged at the Ilsky refinery in Russia’s Krasnodar Region on Aug. 8, while on Aug. 3 nine aviation fuel tanks were destroyed and two aircraft hangars damaged at the Hvardiiske airfield in annexed Crimea.
Last night’s attack extended beyond Tatarstan. Russia’s Defense Ministry said 456 drones were intercepted over 16 Russian regions and annexed Crimea. The ministry did not say how many drones were intercepted over Tatarstan itself.
Ukraine has intensified strikes on Russian oil refineries in recent months, contributing to severe fuel shortages across many parts of Russia and Russian-occupied Ukraine, though authorities claim that most early disruptions have been resolved.
Kyiv says the campaign is intended to make ordinary Russians feel the cost of Moscow’s war. Russia has turned to fuel imports from countries like Belarus and South Korea to shore up supplies.
Nizhnekamskneftekhim, one of Europe’s largest petrochemical plants, is part of the Sibur holding company. It produces rubber, plastics, ethylene, and other petrochemical products. It ranks among the world’s 10 largest producers of synthetic rubber.
The Nizhnekamsk industrial zone, which also contains the TANECO and TAIF-NK oil refineries, has been attacked by Ukraine several times. In June, Ukraine’s General Staff said it had struck both refineries, and The Insider detected a fire in the industrial zone using data from the satellite-based fire monitoring system NASA FIRMS. In early July, Astra speculated that a drone captured on video had crashed on the grounds of TAIF-NK.
