An industrial facility in Novy Urengoy was attacked by a drone, according to a statement made Sept. 9 by Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District governor Dmitry Artyukhov. He said the attack on the facility was repelled, but falling debris caused a fire. No one was reported killed or injured.
Artem Zhoga, the Russian presidential envoy to the Urals Federal District, a large administrative region that includes much of western Siberia and some of Russia’s main oil and gas-producing areas, said a fire broke out at a fuel and energy facility and that its personnel were evacuated. He described it as the first attack on the Arctic part of the Urals Federal District.
The strike may be the longest-range attack launched from Ukrainian territory since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, The Insider found. The plant identified by open-source intelligence analysts as the likely target is located approximately 2,800 kilometers from Ukraine — nearly 500 kilometers farther than the Omsk oil refinery, which was previously attacked.
The drone’s launch site, however, is not yet known, meaning any claim that the strike set a new distance record remains preliminary. Operations in which drones were launched from inside Russia are not included in the comparison.
Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces previously described a strike on the Omsk refinery in early July as the longest-range attack of the full-scale invasion. Denys Shtilerman, chief designer at the Ukrainian company Fire Point, said an FP-1 drone was used in that attack.
Russian authorities did not identify the type of drone that struck Novy Urengoy.
The target was the Novy Urengoy Condensate Preparation Plant, according to a report by the Dnipro Osint project.
The project published a geolocation of video of the results of the attack, along with coordinates of the damaged facility. The same plant was also identified as the target by the Ukrainian monitoring Telegram channel Exilenova+.
The plant is part of Gazprom Pererabotka, Gazprom’s processing division. It prepares gas condensate — a liquid hydrocarbon byproduct produced alongside natural gas and used as a feedstock in oil refining and petrochemicals — for shipment through the Urengoy-Surgut main condensate pipeline.
In October 2024, Gazprom launched a new unit at the plant allowing it to process condensate from different deposits in the region’s gas fields.
Earlier on Tuesday, the neighboring Khanty-Mansi Autonomous District declared a drone attack threat for the first time. Airports in Surgut, Igrim, Nyagan, Sovetsky, and Uray restricted arrivals and departures, while local schools and other educational institutions moved some classes online.
